


A Keithmas Carol

by YouAreInAComaWakeUp (Nikanaiko)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A Christmas Carol AU, Dark Comedy, Hurt/Comfort, Jewish-atheist Keith, M/M, Minor Matt Holt/Shiro, Suicide Attempt, daily updates, just for fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 28,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28101801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikanaiko/pseuds/YouAreInAComaWakeUp
Summary: Keith has read A Christmas Carol. Keith knows how A Christmas Carol is supposed to go.This is not how A Christmas Carol is supposed to go.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 576
Kudos: 179
Collections: Space Losers’ Winter 2020 Collection





	1. Marley

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I don't celebrate Christmas (at least not by choice) but I _do_ watch some version of A Christmas Carol every December because I enjoy a good anti-capitalist story. And every dang year since 2017, I've been tempted to make a dang Christmas Carol AU. But I've always had other fics to work on and kept saying "Eh, maybe next year."
> 
> Well, this year, I decided to finally say "fuck it" and write the damn thing because, let's be honest with ourselves, I'm never going to not be working on a fic. But I've made a compromise with myself. The terms of the compromise are as follows.
> 
> 1) Short-ass chapters that I'll attempt to post every day (barring extenuating circumstances like, for instance, my depression is so bad I can't move or some shit).  
> 2) Low effort. This is not going to be the quality of my usual work. The voice this work is in is purposeful and ngl I'm probably gonna get lazy and revert to my usual writing voice as the story goes on, with only occasional returns to That Voice.  
> 3) This is less of a fic project and more like a year-end event. Like a "Yaaay! You made it to the end of shit-ass 2020! Have a thing I update every day for a constant stream of serotonin." I Don't Yet Know What I'm Gonna Do If December Ends And This Isn't Finished. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
> 
> Oh, also, in case it seems like Keith is gonna, like, end this story Celebrating Christmas, I swear he won't. Like, he might go along with loved ones who do celebrate Christmas, but he's a Jewish atheist. That's not changing. In fact, the whole reason I made him a Jewish atheist in the first place is that I Don't Celebrate Christmas And If I'm Writing A Christmas Fic I Don't Want It To Be Quite So Christmassy.
> 
> Oh, and definitely heed those tags.
> 
> We good?
> 
> Good.
> 
> On with the fic.

Keith was Jewish, to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that.

Well, strictly speaking, he was an atheist, but in the same way many formerly-Christian atheists still followed some Christian traditions, Keith still followed some Jewish traditions. And his mom was Jewish, so— He was just Jewish, okay? And an atheist. Keep up.

Point is, he had absolutely no business celebrating Christmas at all, and he didn't want to, and he wasn't going to. All he wanted to do was curl up in the house he lived in all by his lonesome and pretend Christmas Eve wasn't even happening.

Unfortunately for him, when he woke up on December 24th, he emptied out the last of his gross, bland, flavorless oatmeal and realized he was also out of cheese, bread, peanut butter, eggs, milk, shaving cream, and bananas, so unless he wanted to sustain himself entirely on Saltines that night, he'd have to weave between last-minute shoppers and frazzled supermarket employees to pick up some groceries.

So, grumbling—and Keith was  _ usually _ grumbling—Keith finished his breakfast, grabbed his coat, and stepped out into the gloomy, overcast Christmas Eve to get the means to not-starve that night.

As he stepped out of his old, broken-down car, he realized, to his relief, that there weren't many cars. Just a couple scattered here and there, one of which was as full as it could get, suggesting whoever it belonged to had packed everything they owned into the passenger seat.

A loud ringing carried across the parking lot, seizing Keith's attention a lot more than he wished it would.

See, some jackass with a red bucket was ringing a bell outside the grocery store doors. And Keith was grumpy, but he wasn’t selfish. He spent many a wintery season pouring coins into those red buckets. But at some point or another, he realized that every dime that found its way into one of those red buckets went straight to an anti-queer organization’s pocket, and he wasn't about that, so on his way inside, he gave that red bucket and its jackass bell-ringer as wide of a berth as he possibly could without looking ridiculous.

Pro of that? The ringing couldn't penetrate his skull quite as much as it otherwise would.

The con? Keith's big, awkward arc around the bucket led him right into the chest of the handsomest, most charming man on the face of the planet.

Who...wasn't having a very good day.

And Keith had just spilled a little of the bottled smoothie he'd bought on his sleeve.

It was just a little, but when someone's in a bad mood, they can be a little, y'know...

"Jesus! Watch it, creep!"

...Testy.

Keith, who knew he had avoided the bucket-ringer so widely for no better reason than to be dramatic, was understandably embarrassed, but wasn't about to admit it.

Instead, he just rolled his eyes and pushed past with two little words he thought he'd said quietly enough that no one heard him.

But the person they were directed at heard them perfectly.

"Fucking idiot..."

And in Keith's defense, he didn't know what the person he'd directed those words toward had been going through. He didn't know those words would hit a lot harder than they'd hit anyone else that day. He didn't know he'd just set off a chain reaction that would change the destinies of two people forever.

All he knew was that a stack of those plastic baskets was on his left dairy section was to his right and he had milk and cheese to pick up.

So he turned away from the man he'd bumped into and erased him from his mind, freeing up space to compare the expiration dates on two half-gallons of milk.

Keith set down the milk with the sooner date stamped to it and turned to make his way to the cheese, and in doing so, he caught a man staring at him.

A man with neat, silver, shoulder-length hair and a matching, neatly-groomed beard.

He was smiling. Just smiling. Like a parent fondly watching their child.

Keith raised an eyebrow.

The man didn't react. He just kept smiling.

Which was weird.

Very weird.

But then, it was Christmas Eve. Maybe the old guy was just caught up in holiday cheer or something.

Keith had to maneuver around him to grab the eggs, and still the man didn't move.

"...Happy holidays," grumbled Keith as he made his way past, in no small rush to get away from the strange, staring man.

"Happy holidays, Keith," said the man.

Keith's eyes widened and he turned around, startled, but by the time he looked back, the man had disappeared.

Probably went into another aisle.

Keith shivered, but he was quick to dismiss the encounter. He didn't really care to remember anyone from high school. That was probably an old geography teacher or something.

Keith quickly shoved that strange, smiling man from his mind, dismissing that brief meeting as odd, but normal.

He really, really shouldn't have.

Because it really, really wasn't.

Keith's shopping trip continued as normal up until the point where Keith took his groceries to the till, where another smiling man waited for him.

But Keith had absolutely no reason to think this guy wasn't  _ paid _ to smile at him, so he set his basket on the conveyor belt and reached into his pocket for his wallet.

"Good morning!" chirped the cashier in an accent Keith couldn't quite place. New Zealander, maybe.

"Hi," said Keith, already counting out the bills he estimated he needed for his purchase.

"Fine day," said the cashier as he scanned Keith's bread.

"Cold," said Keith stiffly.

"Perhaps for some people," said the cashier.

Keith ignored him, focusing on the beep-beep-beeps of the scanner.

"25.83," announced the cashier.

Keith handed him a twenty, a five, and a one before gathering up his groceries, too eager to leave to care about his change.

"Have a nice day, Keith!" called the cashier. Rather than being startled as he'd been before, Keith assumed the man had simply seen his ID when he pulled out his wallet and moved on.

Keith was already in his car and on his way home when he realized the keyring lying across his ID as part of his wallet would have prevented his name from being seen.

Keith stopped his car on the street in front of his house, the same way he always did, and found that it was more of a struggle than it usually was, owing to the greater number of cars outside his house than usual.

Whatever was going on in the house across the street had nearly crept onto his stoop.

When Keith paused outside his door to dig in his pocket for his house key, grocery bags in hand, he stole a glance across the street.

A woman on the sidewalk dressed like Saint Lucia, down to the candles in her silver hair, raised Keith's eyebrow.

"Good morning, Keith," she said warmly, her voice steady, not shouted, but somehow perfectly audible across the street.

Keith was sure he must have met the woman at some point. They had to be neighbors, didn't they? But Keith had had a weird enough morning already, so he just said, "Hi."

Then, feeling silly, he opened his door, stepped inside, and locked it behind him.

Keith, who didn’t have much of a life, found himself spending a lot of the on the internet. He'd seen enough people—people he never spoke to—talk about  _ encounters with the fae _ more than once, about meeting strange people at bus stops on the edge of forests who seemed to hover on the edge of reality.

Keith never thought much of those stories. They were interesting to read, sure, but he never believed any of them actually happened. Or at least, if they did, Keith assumed the storytellers exaggerated the surreality of their experiences.

But, just for a moment, Keith allowed himself a passing suspension of disbelief. He'd had a weird day. He was willing to believe, for a minute or two, that other people might have had weird days of their own.

But by the time Keith had put all his groceries away and sat down on his living room couch and wrapped himself up in his blanket, he managed to shake off that spooky feeling that was clinging to him and decided any weirdness was just Keith being startled by that person he bumped into at the door, and he spent the rest of his day in only slightly melancholy comfort.

Until that night.

That night, when the cuckoo clock over Keith's mantle chimed midnight...and Keith heard a knock at his door.


	2. PAST

Keith looked over the back of his couch and sent a glare to the front door.

No way in hell was he answering that. Strangers didn't knock on front doors at midnight for good reasons. And Keith didn't _know_ anyone, so that was definitely a stranger.

Keith pulled his blankets high around his neck, hunkered down deep in his flowery couch, pretended he wasn't there, and waited for the knocking to stop.

And it stopped.

Keith listened closely, expecting to hear footsteps retreating from his front door, or to hear a car start up and drive away.

That wasn't what he heard.

"You know, I did _try_ to be polite."

Keith jerked upright.

That... _definitely_ came from behind his couch.

He whipped around and looked, expecting to see someone standing in his foyer in front of the stairs, having silently opened the door he swore he locked.

He didn't see someone there.

No, he saw someone looming over the back of his couch. Watching from.

Saint Lucia.

"Shit!" Keith scrambled back and landed on the floor, sandwiching himself between the couch and the coffee table. "Ow..." He rubbed the base of his spine, which had crashed into the coffee table on his way down.

Saint Lucia raised her eyebrows. "If you'd invited me in, you wouldn't have been startled."

"Wh—?" Keith grabbed the edge of the table and pulled himself up. "What are you doing in my house?! Get out!"

"I will most certainly not," said Saint Lucia. "There's something very important that needs discussing."

"You mean like how you're trespassing?" Keith rounded the couch. "I'm giving you three seconds to leave, or I'm picking you up and throwing you out myself."

"Keith—"

"I'm not even going to ask how you know my name," said Keith. "One."

"It's very important that you listen to me," said Saint Lucia.

"Yeah, I'm sure," said Keith. " _Two._ "

"Keith, please have a little more patience."

"Three."

Keith snatched the front of Saint Lucia's robes. Or, more specifically, he tried to. All he got was a fistful of air.

He tried again, and when he got nothing, he screamed and stumbled back.

Saint Lucia rolled her eyes. "If you listened to me, this wouldn't have happened."

"What—" Keith clenched his hands into fists, fight winning over flight, though he didn't know how he was supposed to fight something that his hands went right through. "What are you supposed to be?"

Saint Lucia held out her hands, palms up. "My name is Allura," announced her elegant, regal voice in floor-shaking tones. "And I am the _Ghost of Christmas Past._ "

Keith didn't lower his fists. Not right away. Not until Allura's words sank in.

Then he did, very abruptly.

"Okay, there's no way I'm that bad."

Allura lowered the face she'd turned proudly heavenward. "I beg your pardon?"

"I've read _A Christmas Carol,_ " said Keith. "Everyone has. And I'm not Ebenezer Scrooge. I don't have the _power_ to be Ebenezer Scrooge.”

Allura crossed her arms. “ _That_ was only a story. Charles Dickens based _A Christmas Carol_ on his own experiences with the teachings.”

“The teachings,” repeated Keith. “What are you supposed to teach me?”

“That depends,” said Allura. “Specifically on what you are ready to learn. We will adapt our lesson to frame your needs.”

“So, what,” said Keith, “is this some kind of...remedial lesson on how to be a human or something?”

“Or something,” said Allura.

Keith clicked his tongue. “Is this because of the guy in the supermarket?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The guy in the supermarket,” said Keith. “The one I bumped into and called an idiot.”

“Erm...no,” said Allura. “I wasn’t even aware that happened.”

“Then why me?” asked Keith. “Why would you choose me for something so… _dire?_ And— And where’s my Jacob Marley? There’s supposed to be a fourth ghost, and everyone always forgets him because he’s not one of the time-related ones. _He_ was supposed to warn me about _you._ Where is he?”

“Ah, well…” Allura’s voice softened. “That… The second question sort of answers your first. You did have your own _Jacob Marley._ It was his idea for you to be included in the teachings this year.”

Keith narrowed his eyes. “ _What?_ ”

“Well, he didn’t want to scare you,” said Allura. “So instead of showing up in your living room and giving you a heart attack, he just...hid your groceries.”

“...He what?”

“Surely you realized you ran out of eggs rather quickly,” said Allura. “He hid your groceries so you would leave your house to get more. Instead of invading your home with clues of what you were soon to face, he made you leave to find them on your own.”

Keith dropped his glare to the floor.

It couldn’t be... _him,_ could it?

Who was Keith kidding? This was exactly the sort of thing he would do.

“It worked, didn’t it?” asked Allura. “You did meet me ahead of time at least, didn’t you?”

Keith lifted his head. Warily, he met Allura’s eyes. Blue, but with an odd red in her pupils, as if she had constant red-eye, like she was less a person than a walking photograph.

She held out her hand, not unkind. Not like she was inviting Keith into the same sort of hell Scrooge had been invited into.

“Do you want to see him?” she asked gently. “Your Jacob Marley.”

“Of course I do,” said Keith. “But…”

He eyed the hand. Inviting or not, Keith wasn’t sure he was ready to grab it. The woman’s kind patience could have been a facade. But…

_But…_

“Keith.”

Keith lifted his head.

Allura smiled. “He wouldn’t bring you into danger.”

“How do I—” Keith’s voice cracked, and he hesitated. “How do I know it’s really him?”

“You can’t,” said Allura. “Not really. All you can do is take my hand and see what happens.”

Keith still hesitated.

“ _Bear but a touch of my hand,_ ” said Allura, her voice different—still gentle, but newly commanding, “ _and you shall be upheld in more than this._ ”

Keith looked over his shoulder, at the cuckoo clock that still showed just past midnight.

That old clock meant so much to him. To see the person who gave it to him again, even if it was just for a minute, even if it was just in a memory, even if it was just to teach him a lesson...even if it hurt...Keith would do anything.

Even take a spirit’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, short chapters, little effort, quick updates. <3


	3. What Once Was Held

Keith's feet hit the ground and he took a look at his surroundings.

 _Okay,_ he thought. _Antok Park._

It was certainly part of his past. He used to go there a lot. But he couldn't remember anything significant happening there.

The hand in his gave him a squeeze and he looked to his left to find Allura still standing there.

He frowned at her. Specifically her appearance. "Why do you look like that?"

"Like what?" asked Allura.

"Like..." Keith gestured toward her with a flat hand. "...Saint Lucia."

"Ah." Allura raised her hand to her head. "The candles. Well, people tend to be more receptive to their pasts when they can look at it."

"What?"

Allura gestured over her head, and her thick head of hair vanished, along with the candles and her eerie red-blue eyes. It was as if her face had been replaced by the sun, like the candles had been diffusing the light somehow and she'd just yanked off Keith's sunglasses.

He winced and looked away. Even the snow at his feet, bright in its own respect, was easier to look at than Allura herself.

"Okay, okay! I get it!"

The light in Keith's peripheral vision faded and he warily looked toward Allura again.

"The past always exudes light," she told Keith. "Sometimes, it's illuminating. Sometimes, it's warm. And sometimes, it's painful to look at."

Keith hummed, conceding her point.

"One more question," he said.

"I _am_ here to illuminate," said Allura, smiling at her own joke.

"Why Christmas? Like, you know I don't—"

"You don't celebrate it," said Allura. "And yes, I know. And it's a misnomer. There's no need to keep things to Christmas Day. It's just a matter of being near the end of the year. New beginnings, combating seasonal affective disorder...these are all far more important to the teachings than a Christian holiday."

"Well, I mean..." Keith shrugged one shoulder. "Rosh Hashanah was in September. And Chinese New Year's not until Feb—"

"Calendar years, Keith," sighed Allura. "I was referring to the end of the calendar year. Based on the solar calendar. The calendar most people on this planet observe, even if it isn't the only calendar they observe."

"I'm just saying it's kind of arbitrary," said Keith. "You could have picked any calendar."  
  
" _The point is,_ " snapped Allura, dragging them back on track by force, "Dickens decided to make his story a Christmas story, and 200 years of hearing 'Oh, like _A Christmas Carol,_ ' gets old, and after realizing the story isn't going out of style any faster than Homer's _Odyssey_ , we decided to lean into it."

"Like Yule," noted Keith.

"Sort of an equal opposite to Yule." Allura began to walk, and her gentle but firm hand pulled Keith along. "So, where are we?"

"Just a park," said Keith. "Nothing special. We used to come here every..."

His gaze slid across the park, across the snow-covered hills and slides and swingsets, and landed on a single, occupied bench.

"...Every Christmas," breathed Keith.

There he sat. Shiro. Alive. Young. Younger than Keith was. He must have been no older than fifteen.

"But you don't celebrate Christmas," said Allura.

"We didn't," said Keith, hypnotized by the sight of his own tiny form clinging to Shiro's arm. "But Shiro's family did. We dragged them into Hanukkah, and they dragged us into Christmas. Sort of. We never opened presents around a tree, and the Shiroganes never sang when we lit the menorah, but...we still spent the day together."

"What were they to you?"

"Family friends. Shiro's dad and my mom were best friends since they were kids, and...I guess it was kind of decided for me and Shiro that we'd be best friends, too. Even if he was eight years older."

"So it's only natural that you'd spend holidays together, even the ones you didn't celebrate," said Allura. "You were family."

"Yeah," murmured Keith. "Yeah, we were."

"And the boy on Shiro's other side?" asked Allura.

Keith felt like he was going to pull a muscle in his eye from all the effort it took to tear his line of sight from Shiro's back.

"Oh." Keith's heart twisted guiltily. "That's Matt. Shiro's boyfriend. His whole family had been atheist for generations and didn't celebrate Christmas, so he was free on the 25th and...he came with us sometimes."

"Bit of an unusual gathering," noted Allura. "Two nuclear families and the boyfriend of one of the children. No extended family?"

"Both of Shiro's grandparents on his dad's side died before he was born," explained Keith. "The ones on his mom's side didn't approve of how his mom raised Shiro."

He watched Matt pop an orange slice into Shiro's mouth, and he watched his younger self snuggle into his side, their parents deep in conversation about interior decorating in their own circle beside the bench.

"What do you mean, 'how she was raising him'?" asked Allura.

As if to respond to her question, the beep of an alarm called across the park, and the circle of adults stopped talking immediately.

Keith watched Shiro's mother reach into her purse for a small bottle of a clear liquid.

Shiro's groan carried across the park just as easily as the alarm had. "Do we have to? It's Christmas."

"Which makes it all the more important," said his father. "You wouldn't want to be rushed to the hospital on Christmas, would you?"

Keith found himself smiling despite the melancholy settled in his heart.

"His mom taught him to love himself," said Keith, finally answering Allura's question. "Whether that meant loving himself for being Japanese or for being gay or for being disabled. His grandparents...his grandfather in particular...said only one of those was worth being proud of. They just couldn't...wrap their heads around loving anyone who wasn't just like them. So Shiro's parents decided to make their own family. And that included my family, and...excluded Shiro's grandparents."

Matt took Shiro's hand, and the younger, smaller Keith let go of his arm in favor of his torso, freeing him to receive his injection.

"Was that lonely for you?" asked Allura.

"Nah." Keith crossed his arms. "If someone didn't respect Shiro, I didn't want anything to do with them."

"When did that change?"

Keith turned his head. For the first time since he saw Shiro, he looked away, and he looked at Allura. "What are you talking about? If someone talks shit about Shiro, I don't want anything to do with them now, either."

"That..." Allura tapped her chin with a finger. "That wasn't quite what I meant."

Keith furrowed his brow.

"Let's look at another moment in your past," said Allura.

"I—" Keith looked back at Shiro. He wanted to get closer, not move away.

Allura squeezed Keith's hand. "Don't worry. We aren't leaving Shiro."

The ground at Keith's feet began to dissolve. Like snow falling in reverse, the world beneath Keith rose into the air and settled at ceiling height as a new image, new colors, a new world.

An old world.

Allura started down the stairs, but Keith was too caught up in looking around himself to follow.

Antok Park had simply been a park, a place Keith visited a few times a year.

But this?

This was the mall next to his house. It wasn't popular, and it shut down when he was fourteen, but when he was a kid...

"Keith?" Allura tugged on his hand, gentle, but insistent. "What's that look in your eye?"

Keith looked down the corridor. The mall felt so empty it seemed almost closed, but Keith knew it wasn't. That was how it always was.

And for the first time, it struck him where he was. He wasn't just seeing Shiro again. This world, the ground he walked on, the air he breathed in, the brick walls around him... It was all the past. Keith's past. Like walking through an old home video.

But Keith didn't know how to express those feelings.

So he didn't.

At Allura's gentle tugging, he found himself shuffling into a music store, and again, his heart stopped.

Once again, he saw Shiro, but this time, closer, and this time rather than from behind and half-hidden by a bench, he saw Shiro's face, warm and open and smiling.

And he saw himself, perhaps twelve, lingering by Shiro's side.

"You never left his side, did you?" asked Allura.

"Not if I could help it," admitted Keith. "When he went to college, it was like I lost a part of me, and every time I saw him, every break he came home for, every family event I visited him for, I latched myself onto some part of him and wouldn't let go, like I was trying to glue the part I lost back on."

"That sounds like insecurity," said Allura.

Keith shrugged. He supposed it was. There was probably some part of Keith while he grew up that was scared he'd lose Shiro at any moment.

A fear that would one day come true.

"Why are you glaring at the grunge shelves like that?" asked Shiro to Keith's younger self.

Keith's young self shrugged and pulled the collar of his red flannel up around his cheeks.

"If you want to check out the CDs over there, I won't stop you," said Shiro.

Keith just shrugged again, sidling closer to Shiro. "There are people over there."

And there were. Two kids Keith's age—one in a yellow vest, the other in blue flannel that mirrored Keith's—passed a pair of headphones back and forth, eagerly showing each other songs.

"Yeah," said Shiro. "People you might have something in common with. Maybe you even go to the same school. Why don't you talk to them."

The Keith of the past just rolled his eyes, and the Keith of the present knew he'd most likely react the same way if anyone, even Shiro, said that to him that day.

"Why didn't you follow his advice?" asked Allura. "Talk to them? Make friends?"

Keith shoved his hands so deep into his jeans pockets that they pushed his watch into his wrist bone. "I just... I didn't need anyone but Shiro, all right?"

"I'm not sure that's true," said Allura. "And I'm not sure Shiro agreed with you, either."

She tapped Keith gently on the nose, grabbing his attention, and led it across to where Shiro still stood in the past, still digging through the same CDs he'd been inspecting before.

And for the first time, Keith noticed the look on his face.

Concerned.

Worried.

Allura clasped Keith's hand warmly between both of her own.

"Come," she said gently. "I have one more memory from your past to show you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels so expository but I said low effort and I meant it.


	4. Yahrzeit

"No."

Keith looked up and down the white walls, the white floors, the white ceilings. White on white on white and everything was too clean and smelled sterile and Keith knew _exactly_ where he was.

When he was.

"No, Allura, I can't—"

"I told you." Allura gripped Keith's hand tight, too tight, tight enough to hurt. And her eyes, rather than sitting on Keith, looked down the hallway. "Sometimes, the past hurts to look at. And sometimes, you can learn from it. And...sometimes, it's both."

"I don't need to relive this," snapped Keith. "I've already relived this enough times in my head. _Let go of me._ "

"No, Keith," growled Allura. "I will _not._ Because I _don't_ think you've relived this moment. Not truly. Not as what it is. Or else your life would not be where it is. You would have learned from this experience." She walked down the hall, leading Keith with the same unyielding pull as a dog owner on the other end of a stubborn dog's leash. And Keith had no choice but to follow.

He closed his eyes as Allura pulled him through the door at the end of the hall. He didn't want to see.

But he could hear.

He knew the sound of Shiro's respirator.

And he knew the sound of that solid silence, that heavy cloud of soundlessness after Shiro stopped grunting with every pained movement. Stopped, not because the pain had gone away, but because he didn't have the energy to move anymore. Movement just...stopped being worth it.

"Keith," chided Allura. "Keith, you have to look."

"I can't. I can't do this."

"Yes, you can. You _must._ Now, _look._ "

Keith's eyes were opened. Not by Keith. _He_ didn't open his eyes. But his eyes opened.

And he saw Shiro.

Thin. Unable to keep food down for weeks, approaching months. The muscle Keith remembered at Shiro's physical peak long lost.

Pale. Frail. Dying. The needle in his arm drip-feeding him all the life his weary body could still hold.

And Allura was right. He didn't remember everything.

He remembered Shiro looking weak in his last moments. He didn't remember Shiro looking like...

Like the bouquet someone strung up by its base in a desperate attempt to keep the memory of their wedding day alive.

Like Shiro was held together only by the fact that all his pieces were stacked on one another in a way that gravity agreed with. A brick wall without mortar. Melted chocolate with a spatula hanging just overhead like the scythe of Death.

Keith felt tears spring to his eyes, burning, stinging. He didn't want to look, but he couldn't turn away.

And he saw himself, only two years younger, his hand perched on the edge of Shiro's bed, inches from the ends of Shiro's fingers, scared to touch, to dissolve the dry sand castle he sat beside and turn him to just a pile of sand.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them would.

"Can we please go?" rasped Keith. "I don't want—"

"Keith..."

Keith froze.

Allura set a kind, gentle hand between his shoulder blades, but it wasn't her who spoke.

It was Shiro.

"Keith, listen to me..."

Keith watched his younger self's eyes widen, but he didn't lift his head, didn't look up from the sheets on Shiro's hospital bed.

"We both know I'm not getting out of here." Every word Shiro spoke seemed only as loud as a snowflake meeting the snow-covered earth beneath it. "It's not anyone's fault. It's never been a secret. My life was always going to be short. And now, it's ending."

Keith saw the hand on the bed, so near Shiro's, begin to shake, to tremble against the sheets.

He knew. He already knew. He'd known for a long time. But to hear it from Shiro—

"I need to ask you to do something for me, after I'm gone."

The Keith from the past still didn't lift his head.

"I need..." Shiro winced. "I need you to talk to someone, okay?"

Keith's knee bounced off the edge of his chair. "What, like— Like a therapist?"

"Like a friend, Keith," rasped Shiro. "You need _friends._ Anyone. As long as you aren't alone."

Keith's past self laughed bitterly, and he took his hand off the sheets to run it down his face. “You— You’re on your _death bed,_ and you’re thinking about _me._ ”

Shiro closed his eyes. “I love you, Keith. I’m _always_ thinking about you.”

Keith, the one in the past, didn’t have an answer for that.

And years later, Keith, the one in the present, still didn’t.

They fell back into silence, and Keith recognized the start of his half-waking dreams, the ones that haunted his mind as he slipped into sleep most nights.

And Keith didn’t want to leave anymore.

All at once, he realized that this was the last moment he’d ever see Shiro with his own eyes. The last time he ever _saw_ Shiro with his own eyes, the reason he could never face Matt again because facing Matt meant looking him in the eye and admitting that _he_ was there for Shiro’s final moments and Matt _wasn’t_ and he’d _squandered the moment—_

He didn’t want to squander the moment.

He didn’t want to hear that last “I love you” and miss his chance to say it back.

He wanted, _needed,_ to change it. He knew it, accepted it, deep in his heart. It clicked, for the first time, just how much of his hangups about losing Shiro involved that one last missed opportunity to say the words Shiro deserved to hear one more time.

That was the exact moment Allura let go of his hand.

And Keith blinked.

And the world shifted.

Just slightly. It didn’t change colors or depths or realities or even rooms. It just... _shifted._

About two feet to the right, two feet forward, and forty-five degrees down.

Keith lowered his hands from his face and lifted his head.

Shiro still lied beside him, eyes closed.

The moment Keith realized what was happening, he stood from the chair he found himself in. It squeaked as it was pushed back across the linoleum floor.

He was real, tangible. He’d taken his past self’s place. And Shiro—

_Shiro._

God, he looked even more fragile up close. And Keith wanted to tell him everything, about how wonderful and important Shiro was and how _sad_ Keith was to lose him but how _deeply_ he cherished knowing Shiro because just eighteen years with Shiro was worth a _lifetime_ with _anyone_ else—

But there was no time.

He didn’t have time to tell Shiro everything he deserved to hear.

He couldn’t even sweep Shiro up into his arms and hold him as tight as he deserved because so much of his body had been eaten away and replaced with painful scar tissue and Keith didn’t want Shiro’s last moments to be any more painful than they had to be.

But there was something, some small act he could carry out without hurting Shiro.

He leaned over Shiro, bowed his head, held Shiro’s face, and pressed his lips to Shiro’s forehead.

“Keith—”

“I love you, too,” murmured Keith. “I’m _always_ going to love you. You’re my brother, and you always will be.”

“...I know,” said Shiro. “I know.”

For the length of a single breath, there was silence. Pure, empty, peaceful silence.

Then, as if to make up for that silence, the world began to scream.

Beeping, yelling, the screeching of machinery and hospital staff alike. Something warm wrapped around Keith’s hand and yanked him back, and he left his body, his past, behind him. He watched himself cry out, scream Shiro’s name.

Keith whirled around, searching for Allura, for the person that belonged to the hand that had pulled him away, but she wasn’t there. And when Keith looked back at Shiro, neither was he. Nor was the hospital or the staff or his desperate, screaming past self.

All that remained was Keith’s living room.

His coffee table to his right.

His couch to his left.

Trembling, Keith lowered himself onto the edge of his couch. He buried his face in his hands, shuddered, and the sound of his quiet, fragile sobs echoed through his living room, down the hall, and into the kitchen, where the last egg of a lost carton was set gently back into place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little late, but I had a panic attack, whaddaya want.


	5. PRESENT

Shiro had been an engineer, when he was alive.

He'd wanted to be an astronaut, but his health was deemed unfit for space travel. He decided, instead, to be involved with space exploration from the ground.

He...never made it that far.

But he did manage to leave his mark on the world via the cuckoo clock Keith had on his mantle.

It was old-fashioned clockwork, and had to be wound every so often, but Keith didn't mind. For Keith, it was like he was feeding Shiro's memory with every turn of the key, keeping it alive the same way Keith kept himself alive with every meal.

It wasn't much, but it was something. Something Keith could still do for Shiro, even when he was gone.

That cuckoo clock chimed playfully over Keith's fireplace, announcing the turn of the hour from midnight to one o'clock, and Keith lowered his hands from his face.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed since he'd started crying. He wasn't sure how much time had passed since he _stopped,_ either. He was just...tired, and his eyes felt all gross and _sticky_ around the corners, and the world felt, so, so heavy.

"Hullo!"

" _AAAH!_ "

Too bad for ol’ mullethead, the world was all too keen to get heavier.

Starting with the abrupt appearance of a small child.

That child sat on the edge of his coffee table, kicking his feet, an enormous, beaming smile under his mustache.

Yep.

You read that right.

_Mustache._

"I'm Cowr-an!" said the child brightly. "The Ghost of Christmas Presents!"

Keith cautiously released his death grip on the blanket he'd instinctively grabbed when the child appeared in front of his face. "Uh... I think you mean _Christmas Present._ "

"Yeah!" The boy jumped to his feet, the empty scabbard hanging from his belt slamming loudly into the edge of the table. "And you're Keef!"

"Keith."

"Keef!"

Keith pressed his face back into his hands. He was _not_ good with children, and he was _not_ in the mood to deal with one. Much less a magical one that was supposed to make him hate himself. "Okay, look— _Listen._ " Keith lowered his hands. "Can you come back late— _Hey!_ "

Coran, it seemed, hadn't been patient enough to wait for Keith to catch his breath, find an answer, and Keith learned, quite quickly, how typical of a child the Ghost of Christmas Present was.

Just like any other child, Coran moved through Keith's tiny living room like a whirlwind and got into _everything._

"What's this?"

"A candle. Put it down."

"What's _this?_ "

"My bowl from lunch."

"Ew!"

"Hey! Don't—! You can't just _drop dishes on the floor!_ "

"Wow! What's this?!"

"A _knife._ Put it back before—"

"Cool!"

Without waiting for permission he never would have gotten from a spoil-sport like Keith, Coran shoved Keith's knife into his empty scabbard, completing the look.

"Hey!" Keith tried to snatch Coran by the back of his robes, but just like with Allura, his hand slid right through. "That's not yours! Give it back!"

Coran hopped onto Keith's coffee table and _through_ his chest, giving Keith the briefest feeling of having inhaled a lungful of woodsmoke as Coran darted to the front door.

" _Gonna have to make me!_ " said Coran in a sing-song tone. " _Make me, make me!_ "

Keith, not the most _patient_ of mullet-sporting sex symbols, snarled animalistically and leapt over his couch in a bold attempt to get to his front door before Coran could.

He didn't quite make it.

Coran threw the door open, filling Keith's tiny house with cold air and escaping into the urban night.

Keith gave chase, slamming the door behind him and hoping it didn't matter that he'd left without locking the door.

He had the feeling Round 2 had already started.

"Gonna have to catch me-catch me!" sang Coran, his tiny, high-pitched voice carrying down the street.

Keith turned to look, and Coran put his thumbs in his ears and stuck his tongue out.

"Okay!" roared Keith. "That's it!"

He tore down the street, ice-cold wind cutting his face with every thundering footstep.

Coran laughed, and before Keith could so much as get close, he turned a corner and disappeared into an alley.

" _Get back here!_ "

Keith gave chase and turned the same corner. There was a fence blocking off the end of the alley, but Coran wasn't anywhere to be found.

Keith swore under his breath and nearly turned around, thinking he must have turned down the wrong alley, but before he got the chance, a proud giggle carried down the alley from somewhere on the other side.

The little creep had _climbed the fence._

But that was fine. Keith could do that, too.

And he did, wire pressing hard into his palms and the webs between his fingers.

When Keith hit the street with a loud thud on the other side, he ran until he hit the street on the other side.

"Hee-hee-hee!"

_This way._ "

Keith followed the laughter.

He followed it down the street and into another alley, around corners and through the orange glow of streetlamps until his breathing became labored and his lungs burned and he found himself led to a bridge.

He felt more vulnerable on the bridge. It was out in the open, far from the narrow streets framed by tall buildings in the part of the city where he lived. Keith felt like a wild mouse in a field of freshly-cut hay, waiting for an owl to swoop down from overhead.

Keith gripped the stitch stinging in his side and lifted his head to look into the sky.

He never saw stars, not where he lived. But, usually, he saw the moon.

Not that night, though. No, not that night. Just frigid, icy air sinking its teeth into the sweat on his cheeks, and the lowest layer of thick clouds overhead reflecting the pale, bright white lights that lined the edges of the bridge.

Keith swallowed.

No owls yet.

A quick look around while Keith caught his breath said there was no Coran, either.

Little punk was probably hiding behind one of the beams supporting the bridge.

Keith swallowed, dropped the hand from his aching side, and began to walk, pausing at each pillar to look all around it, making triple-sure Coran wasn't using it to hide before moving to the next.

Keith wondered how real the bridge he walked on was. No cars came, but it _was_ past one o'clock on Christmas morning, so even most of the people who would probably be out at that time of night were with their families. Maybe Keith had just chosen to cross the bridge at a lonely time.

Or maybe time was frozen. Maybe Keith was in some alternate version of the world where he and Coran were the only occupants.

At least Keith could safely guess he wasn't in the future or the past.

He just didn't understand what Coran was _doing._ Why he'd led Keith out onto the bridge in the first place.

_He better have a plan,_ thought Keith, bitter as usual. _I better not be following some supernatural kid just because he's being a kid._

As Keith neared the halfway point of the bridge, he noticed something lying on the sidewalk several pillars ahead, and he ignored the pillars between where he'd been standing and that point out of curiosity to find out what that unidentified _something_ was.

The closer he got, the more details he could make out.

A comfortable steel hilt. A sparkling, violet gemstone embedded near the base of the blade. A scabbard that had looked a great deal longer the last time Keith had seen it, which seemed to have shrunk itself to perfectly fit the knife that had been set inside of it.

_Keith's_ knife. The one his parents gave him on his thirteenth birthday.

The little thief had just dropped it on the ground.

Grumbling, Keith bent down and picked up his knife, scabbard and all, and shoved it into his jacket pocket. At least he knew Coran had gone that way.

Keith took a deep breath and turned around, raising his hands to cup his mouth, to call Coran's name and no doubt get just a distant giggle in response.

But the moment Keith turned, ready to call out, he stopped, and all the air rushed out of his lungs in a soundless whoosh, as if he'd been kicked in the chest.

He didn't see Coran. No, Coran wasn't anywhere to be seen.

But Keith _did_ see _someone._

A very handsome, charming, all-around gorgeous and irresistible someone.

Someone who had been hidden by the pillar beside him the same way Keith suspected Coran would have been.

Who was staring at Keith, lips parted in surprise, tear trails reflecting the white lights overhead.

Who was on the wrong side of the barrier, poised to jump.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's wild, how fast one can write when one is not having a panic attack. I took this morning off! Didn't do shit until, like, 5:00 in the afternoon, when I started this chapter. It's just past 8:30 now.
> 
> Oh, yeah, and if you have yet to heed those tags, now would be the time.


	6. What Must Be Held

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is what that "suicide attempt" tag is for, so if you aren't up for this chapter, I'd suggest leaving now. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline for the United States is
> 
> 1-800-273-8255
> 
> and a list of suicide crisis lines for other countries, and alternate lines for the US (including deaf and hard of hearing options) can be found [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines).
> 
> Please be careful and take care of yourself above all else. No fic is worth putting yourself in danger.

"What...are you doing?"

Keith asked despite knowing exactly what the jumper was doing. Knowing that the jumper knew that he knew.

"Uhh..." The jumper sniffed. "...Looking at the water."

"Looking at the water," deadpanned Keith, who was very good at seeing through bullshit, meaning the half-assed bullshit he was being fed didn't even make it to the table. "At one o'clock in the morning. On that side of the barrier. When you've been crying."

"Wh— Hey!" The jumper took a hand off the barrier he'd been holding onto and wiped his cheek with the cuff of his sleeve. "You've been crying, too! Your eyes are all red!"

Keith scowled at the white lights overhead. If they weren't so damn bright—

"This isn't about me," said Keith. "Just..." He did his best to level his voice, to keep himself calm. "Just get back on the bridge."

The jumper closed his mouth, and without moving his head, he looked to the black water far beneath him.

"Why should I? I'm just a fucking idiot, right?"

A cold breeze passed between Keith and the jumper. He didn't understand, at first, what the jumper was talking about. It felt like he was referring to a conversation they'd had in the past, but Keith didn't know how they could have had that conversation when they'd never met.

They... _hadn't_ met...had they?

The answer hit him all at once.

Same green jacket, same brown hair, same blue eyes.

Same strawberry smoothie stain on the same sleeve the jumper had used to wipe his tears away.

Keith had to think back to that morning, before he'd met Allura, before the first person he'd met who knew his name for no discernable reason. That moment felt so long ago, like it belonged to another lifetime Keith had lived, but it was less than twenty-four hours prior.

That moment he bumped into a man at the supermarket entrance.

_"Jesus! Watch it, creep!"_

_"Fucking idiot..."_

_Holy shit._

"I'm sorry, okay?" said Keith. "I'm sorry I called you an idiot. I was just in a bad mood, and I took it out on you, and I'm sorry. _I_ don't know if you're an idiot. I don't know _anything_ about you. Why would you listen to _me?_ "

The jumper turned away, his free hand reaching behind him to join his left on the barrier. Another cold breeze rolled past, pushing his jacket out of the way as it moved east, jingling his zipper.

"You were right, though," said the jumper, his voice wavering. "I _am_ an idiot."

"Hey—!"

Keith took a step closer, and the jumper loosened his grip, sliding closer to the water until all that held him above it were the very tips of his fingers, the curl of a single knuckle and nothing more.

Keith froze.

His heart picked up its pace. His palms began to sweat. He could hear Shiro's voice in his head.

Patience yields focus.

_Patience_ yields _focus._

...But Keith was never _that_ good at listening to Shiro, anyway.

He charged at the edge of the bridge, at the man barely hanging onto the edge.

The man flinched, and for an instant, Keith saw his back muscles tighten through his too-thin-for-winter jacket, saw his dry knuckles tighten.

He was startled. He hesitated. He _choked._ It took a full second for him to remember he was supposed to jump if Keith got too close.

He let go of the barrier. He began to fall forward.

But one second was all Keith needed.

" _OW! FUCK!_ "

Swinging from the tight grip of Keith's hand around his wrist like a pendulum, the jumper crashed into the side of the bridge, his hip colliding with a solid wall of concrete with a crack that would have easily made Keith wince if he wasn't concentrating all his energy on the knee and hand digging into the barrier, keeping Keith from spilling over the side and landing in the water right alongside the person he was trying to save.

"What the hell?!" The boy Keith refused to let go of cranked his head back to look Keith in the face. There was anger in his scream, but in his eyes, there was only fear. "You're gonna fall!"

"Yeah," grunted Keith bitterly, the winter wind giving him a mouthful of his own hair for his trouble. " _I'm_ gonna fall." He grunted, deep and strained from all the way down in his gut, as he tried with all his might to pull the jumper back up. "It's definitely— _just me_ —who's in trouble here—"

"I didn't—! Why are you—?!" The man slapped Keith's hand with the one dangling at his side, but Keith's grip on his wrist only tightened. " _Let go of me!_ "

" _I'M NOT LETTING ANYONE ELSE DIE!_ "

The boy's eyes widened. His mouth fell open. Keith felt his skin grow colder, though perhaps that was because he was holding on so tight.

"I'm not letting you die," said Keith. "So you can either help me pull you up, or you can wait for my hold on the bridge to slip, because I'd let go of _it_ before I'd let go of you."

The boy swallowed. Keith watched his Adam's apple bob.

Then he watched the boy lift his legs and press the soles of his sneakers into the side of the bridge, willingly climbing up, taking Keith's help.

Keith leaned back with all his might, feeling as though his arm was ripping down the middle, tearing flesh from bone.

The second the man's head appeared over the edge, Keith planted his boot into the side of the barrier and grabbed the man's wrist with the stinging hand he'd scraped clinging to the concrete. The man's opposite hand grabbed onto Keith's, and Keith leaned back as far as he could, taking all the help he could from gravity.

With a wham that knocked the air from his chest, Keith hit the sidewalk, his unwilling rescuee slamming into the concrete beside him.

Before Keith could catch his breath, the boy snatched his hands from Keith's, scrambled to his feet, and ran for it.

Keith loosed a frustrated, breathless roar and rolled onto his chest. Ignoring the aching of his body, he bolted after the boy.

The boy who seemed just as tired, just as tortured by agony, just as worn from his climb up the edge of the bridge as Keith was. What he was doing could barely be called running, and when Keith lunged at him prematurely, he at least managed to grab his ankle on the way down, sending them both crashing into the ground for a second time.

"What—?" gasped the boy, rolling on his back to glare down at Keith. "Are you kidnapping me now? Should've just..."

Keith climbed up the boy's body, taking care to keep some part of it trapped under his weight with every crawling step until he had the boy pinned beneath him, hands on his shoulders, hips trapped between his knees.

"S-Should've just let me fall," finished the boy, eyes wide.

"Fuck you," gasped Keith.

He panted, sweaty and short of breath.

So did the boy beneath him, chest heaving with every labored gasp.

"Why..." The boy swallowed. "Why did you— Hey!"

Keith reached unceremoniously into the boy's pocket.

"What are you doing?" demanded the boy.

"Looking for something," said Keith simply.

"Looking for _what?_ " snapped the boy he pinned. "My _dick?_ Because—"

Keith freed the boy's phone from his pocket. He wasn't sure if the screen had been cracked before the jump or not (it hadn't), but he _did_ know it still worked well enough to make a call.

"Are you robbing me?!" squawked the boy beneath him.

Keith ignored him, searching instead through the recent texts.

At the top of the list was someone called _Hunk_ with three big, sparkling hearts beside the K.

Boyfriend, Keith assumed. And the latest message—a yellow heart sent earlier that day—suggested they weren't going through a rocky patch.

That worked for Keith.

He hit call—a few times, thanks to the cracks in the screen—and raised the phone to his ear.

It rang just once before the person on the other end answered.

" _Lance, it's, like, two in the morning,_ " he groaned. " _Can't this wait until tomorrow?_ "

Keith's positively beautiful eyes wandered back to the boy he had pinned and looked him over, wholly unaware of the effect he had on the boy whose life he'd so heroically saved. "Your name's Lance, huh?"

"What?!" squawked Lance, fighting feebly under Keith's weight. "W-Who are you talking to?! Hey—!"

Keith ignored him. "I'm not Lance," he told the person on the other end of the call. "But I have him."

" _Wait, you_ have _him?_ " asked "Hunk", suddenly a great deal more alert. " _What do you mean you_ have _him? Are you a cop? Is he in trouble?_ "

"I'm not a cop," said Keith. "But Lance is definitely in trouble, and I need you to come get him before he does something s—"

Keith hesitated.

Lance stopped fighting him, hands loosely wrapped around his wrist.

"...Something dangerous."

" _Like what?_ "

Keith took a deep breath through his nose and sat back on Lance's knees.

"...I just caught him trying to jump off the Kolivan Bridge."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, that's
> 
> 1-800-273-8255 - For the National Suicide Prevention Hotline (USA)
> 
> [Click Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines) \- for other countries, and for alternate lines for the US (including deaf and hard of hearing options)
> 
> (Also...don't do what Keith did. Just...don't. He got lucky. If you see someone in trouble like this, I'd recommend calling a hotline and asking them for advice.)
> 
> If you're looking for a sign to go on living, this is it.
> 
> Be safe and love yourself. You deserve it.


	7. I Would Teach My Feet to Fly

Keith held back.

He watched "Hunk" cradle and coddle Lance, alternating back and forth between squeezing him—so tight he disappeared from the waist up in the swaths of "Hunk's" thick arms—and holding Lance's face, making direct eye-contact and wiping away his tears.

Lance looked small. And not just in comparison to "Hunk", who was, admittedly, an enormous man. Sometime between Keith letting Lance off the ground and "Hunk" sweeping Lance into his arms, he'd shrunken into himself.

"Hunk" draped his own thick coat around Lance's slight shoulders and asked him a million questions Keith couldn't quite make out from the pillar he leaned into. Lance didn't seem to be answering many of them. There was a lot of shrugging happening. A lot of avoiding "Hunk's" eyes.

Keith wasn't sure why he hadn't just left to look for Coran. He felt some kind of responsibility for Lance, like he'd gotten himself involved and he needed to see the situation through to the end...whatever that meant. But it wasn't as if he was _doing_ anything.

Just...standing off to the side, back to a steel beam, arms crossed, totally silent.

Keith watched "Hunk" lead Lance to the back of the car he'd stopped at the side of the road, and he pushed himself off the pillar he was leaning into, taking that as his cue to leave.

"Hey, wait!"

Apparently, it wasn't.

"Hunk" came jogging over, leaving Lance in the back of his car, door open.

He stopped in front of Keith and let out a big, cloudy breath, one that almost seemed to glow under the bridge lights. A smile stretched across his face. Tired, but grateful.

"So, hi." He offered his hand. "I'm Hunk..."

"Keith." Eyebrow raised, Keith shook the offered hand. "So your name's actually Hunk? I thought that was just a pet name or something."

"Well, close enough," said Hunk. "It's a nickname, but the kind of nickname where even my parents use it. But _that's_ a topic for another day." He clasped Keith's hand tight between both of his own, trapping it warmly in place. "I almost lost my best friend tonight. I would have, if it wasn't for you."

Huh. Best friend, not boyfriend. Keith was zero for two on assumptions. But either way, Hunk was someone who cared about Lance, who was willing to drive into town for him at two o'clock on Christmas morning. That was the important part.

"I'm glad he's okay," said Keith. "Good luck driving home."

"Wait." Hunk's grip on Keith's hand tightened. "I don't know what you're doing out here at this time of night, but like. If you wanted to come with us—"

"I don't think Lance would want that."

"No, see, he _asked_ for you?"

Keith furrowed his brow. Curious, he peered around Hunk and into the back seat of his car, where Lance sat, shivering and picking at the sleeves of Hunk's jacket.

"...He asked for me." Keith looked back at Hunk. "Really."

"Yeah, he did." Hunk smiled a patient sort of smile that, if Keith were honest with himself, probably reminded him of Shiro. "It was kind of the one thing he said that wasn't a one-word answer to a question. And I mean, I can see why. You _saved his life._ "

"Yeah, he didn't seem very happy to have his life saved," said Keith, less than impressed. "You know he's spent the past twenty minutes trying to get _away_ from me, right?"

"Yeah, well, he also _kind of_ just tried to jump off a bridge," said Hunk, wincing. "His brain isn't exactly working at a hundred percent logical capacity right now. But he asked for you, specifically, and I think that's pretty significant, so like. I won't _make_ you come with us. But I'm _asking_ you to."

Keith opened his mouth to decline. He couldn't go with Hunk and Lance if he already had a more _supernatural_ obligation to fulfill, right?

But before a single word made it past Keith's tongue, he heard a soft, crisp, crunching sound, like teeth piercing the skin of an apple.

Keith's eyes wandered over Hunk's shoulder, and he saw a teenage boy. One with long hair, though half his head was shaved, and a familiar flaming-red mustache. He was munching passively on, not an apple, but what looked like a bright red pear, and he was walking toward Hunk's car with a swagger in his step.

He leaned his hips into the side of the car, roughly where the gas cap was, and thumped the edge of the doorway that led to Lance with a loud _BANG_ that only Keith seemed to hear.

" _Come in and know me better, man,_ " called the teenager, and he took another bite of his odd pear.

Keith took a shaky gulp.

_Okay, Coran. If that's what you want._

"...Fine," said Keith, his attention returning to Hunk's face. "Sounds good."

"Yeah?" Hunk lit up. "You mean it? I mean, I know it's Christmas—"

"I don't celebrate it," said Keith.

"All right, cool!" Hunk let go of Keith's hand, uncovering it and leaving it vulnerable to the cold, humid air. "Guess that settles that! Come on!"

Keith followed Hunk to his little, gray car and joined Lance in the back seat.

"Hey," said Keith, hesitantly climbing in.

"...Hey," mumbled Lance, looking at Keith through the corner of his eye with just as much hesitation.

Keith closed his door with a loud, metallic thud and caught Coran's barely-interested eye through the window.

Hunk climbed into the driver's seat and closed his door with that same thud.

"Okay! Seatbelts!"

Keith followed Hunk's command, and the second his seatbelt clicked into place, the car revved to life all around him. The lights from the dashboard switched on, dusting a faint, green light across the shadows where the roof of the car blocked the bright lights overhead. The warm, cheerful melody of Christmas carols fluttered in from the static of the radio, pressing hard into the heavy air that filled Hunk's car. Keith wasn't sure if he liked it or not.

"Can I take a shower when we get to your house?" asked Lance, timid in a way that didn't seem right for him.

"Absolutely," said Hunk. "Just, uh...let me take some stuff out of the bathroom first, all right?"

Keith watched Lance fall back against the seat behind him.

"Yeah."

Lance closed his eyes and squeezed the end of his borrowed coat.

"Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying so hard to update consistently, even though today wasn't the best for me. I know this is on the shorter end of these chapters, but hey, low-effort project, right?


	8. Bedcovers and Brutal Honesty

"Do you drink coffee?"

Keith sat at Hunk's kitchen table, across from the big man himself. Between them sat a case of razor blades, several bottles of pills, and several _more_ bottles of chemical cleaners.

"...Yeah."

"Do you want some?"

"Sure."

" _I_ want some coffee," said Hunk, and he stood from the table to start making some.

Keith watched him for a few scant seconds before asking, "Does this sort of thing happen with Lance often?"

Hunk laughed nervously. Cackled, high-pitched and distressed. "Trying to kill himself, you mean? Nooooo, no way, nuh-uh, never. Not that I know of. Maybe his family knows something, or Pidge—that's a friend of ours—but this is the first time— I mean— I mean, I've kind of suspected he might have been _depressed_ lately, but I had _no clue_ it was this bad. Like— I have _no idea_ what's going on. I didn't even think he was still _in town._ I thought he went back home to spend Christmas with his family. He said—a _week_ ago, I don't..."

Keith thought back to when he'd bumped into Lance at the supermarket.

He'd been walking out with one of those two-dollar bottled smoothies and nothing else. Keith hadn't thought it was all that weird at the time—after all, he'd been a _little_ distracted—but how many people left a supermarket with exactly _one_ food item that they were already drinking by the time they reached the doors? Unless...

Unless they weren't planning on _needing_ anything else. Like if they were about to move, or they were on vacation, or...

Keith dragged his hand through his long, dark hair, strands catching on the ends of his fingerless gloves.

He wondered how long Lance had been thinking about that bridge. Whether Keith had given him the idea, or whether he'd just delivered the nigh literal killing blow.

From down the hallway, Keith heard a door open. He could only guess it was the bathroom door, unless Hunk had a roommate they'd been willfully torturing by speaking at a full volume since they walked in.

"...I can hear you talking about me," came Lance's voice from down the hall.

Keith lifted his head and exchanged a look with Hunk.

Hunk closed the top of the coffee maker and pressed the button on the side to start it. "Well...why don't you come in here and join the conversation, then?"

No answer came. Not at first. Then Keith heard the soft padding of footsteps approach the kitchen, and Lance appeared in the doorway. He wore a gray t-shirt with a stylized yellow lion's head on the front that absolutely swallowed him, and the drawstring of the sweatpants he wore with it extended all the way to his knees, suggesting he'd had to pull it _tight_ to keep the pants from slipping.

"...My family doesn't know where I am," admitted Lance, bare feet firmly planted on the threshold of the kitchen. "I've been living out of my car for the past week. Outside the grocery store where I met..." Lance nodded his head in Keith's direction.

" _Why?_ " asked Keith, unable to stop himself. If Lance had a loving family who had no idea what he was going through... Keith couldn't wrap his head around why Lance would choose to be alone.

...In fact, in a few years, Lance himself would have no idea how he _ever_ could have thought living out of his car was a better idea than going home to see his mamá.

But the Lance of that night had his reasons, and he wasn't in the mood to share them, so he just shrugged.

And Hunk, the angel he was, let that slide, at least for the night. "You want some coffee?"

"Please," said Lance.

"Cool," said Hunk. "I'm also thinking movie. How about you? Movie?"

Lance shrugged.

"Okay!" said Hunk. "Cool! It'll be like a slumber party. Just, you know, with a guy we barely know." He turned toward Keith. "A _super cool_ guy we barely know."

Keith shrugged and looked down at the tabletop. Hunk didn't have anything to explain to him. He knew he was an outcast among them. If it wasn't for Coran, he wouldn't have been there at all.

The chair beside him squeaked along the floor, and Keith lifted his head to see Lance lowering himself into that chair.

"Hi," he said quietly.

"Hi," said Keith, who didn't talk to people much.

Lance drummed his fingers on the table and curled them in toward his palm. "...Do you like horror movies?"

* * *

"Is he actually asleep this time?"

At Hunk's question, Keith reached for the empty coffee cup Lance cradled on his lap and slipped it out of his hands. His fingers stayed curled where they were, and his breathing didn't falter in the slightest.

"Definitely," murmured Keith. "Deep asleep."

" _Thank god._ " Hunk reached for the remote on his end of the couch and leapt to his feet to turn the gorefest they'd been watching for the past two hours right off. "How he fell asleep to _that_ after _drinking coffee_ I'll never know."

"He's had a big night," said Keith, who had had just as big a night and was just as eager to sleep.

"No kidding," sighed Hunk. "Let me take him to my room." He reached under Lance's back and knees and lifted him effortlessly off the couch. "We've shared beds before, and I'm not letting him out of my sight tonight."

Lance's head lolled into Hunk's chest, and Hunk's eyes softened sadly.

"...The couch pulls out," said Hunk. "I'll bring you some blankets. You'll want to close the drapes, because the sun's going to rise in, like, two hours. Do you want to borrow some clothes to sleep in?"

"That's okay," said Keith, who obviously wanted a set of clothes to sleep in but was too _Keith_ to actually admit it.

Hunk, who was one of the smartest people Lance and Keith had ever met—though the latter didn't know it yet—raised his head to send Keith a pointed look. "I'm bringing you some clothes. Make yourself comfortable."

"Uh..." Keith shifted back and forth on the couch. "...Sure. Yeah, okay."

Hunk nodded, and he disappeared down the hall.

Left alone in the room, Keith set Lance's coffee cup aside and turned around to pull the bed out of the couch. He struggled with it for a bit—but he had the pecs of a classical statue, so still less than Lance usually struggled with that same pull-out bed—but he managed to lay it flat before Hunk returned.

"Hey, you got it out without help," said Hunk. "I always have to help Pidge when they come over. It's always all, 'Curse my short, noodly arms!' and then I pick them up with one hand and pull the bed out with the other. You know, just to rub it in."

Keith found himself smiling. Maybe he'd just met Hunk, but he could already tell he was a great friend.

"Anyway, want help making the bed? Actually, you know what? No. Don't answer that, because you're going to lie, I can already tell."

Hunk tossed the pillows he brought at the head of the bed and threw one corner of the blanket toward Keith.

"Take that end. I'll take this one. You know that parachute thing kids do in P.E. in elementary school? Or did when we were kids. I don't know if they do it anymore."

Keith unfolded his end of the blanket. "Yeah. I know what you're talking about."

"Cool," said Hunk. "Okay, so this is gonna be just like that. Count of three."

Keith nodded.

"One..." Hunk gripped his end of the blanket. "Two— Keith, come on."

"What?"

"You gotta _count with me, man._ " Hunk fluttered his end. "We're starting over. And this time, you're counting with me, okay?"

Keith rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Yeah, okay."

"One," they said together, Hunk watching Keith closely to make sure he kept up.

Keith smirked back at him, knowing exactly what he was doing and proud to have kept his word. "Two..."

They each pulled on their sides of the blanket.

"Three!"

They threw the blanket in the air and brought it back down so it laid nice and warm across the mattress.

Hunk leaned back, hands on his hips as he proudly surveyed his work. "Cool. All right, you can take a shower before you go to bed, if you want. Help yourself to the shampoo and stuff. But, fair warning, if Lance wakes up before you, he _will_ wake you up, so it might be a better idea to sleep while you can and shower in the morning."

Hunk's bright smile faded.

"At least..." He looked in the direction of the hallway, where Lance slept. "At least, that's the Lance I know. I'm kind of starting to wonder if I know him at all."

"No one's themselves when they're feeling this bad." Keith lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. "You can't expect an Olympic runner with a broken leg to run the way he usually does, and you can't expect someone who's really depressed to feel like he usually does. He'll heal eventually, and he'll start acting more like he usually does again." Keith pulled a leg onto his knee and worked a boot off. "Maybe he won't be _exactly_ the same, but I get the feeling insisting everyone else must be awake if he is won't be the kind of thing he'll lose."

"You think so?" asked Hunk.

Keith pulled off his other shoe. He wasn't sure what it was that compelled him to be so honest. Maybe it was what happened with Lance, or maybe it was just that Hunk was Hunk, and Keith felt like he could trust him. But, either way, Keith looked Hunk in the eye, set his hands on his thighs, and admitted something he'd never told _anyone._

"That's how it went for me."

His honesty, however dark, seemed to reach Hunk, and a little of the tension in his shoulders ebbed away.

"Thanks, Keith." He stole a glance in the direction of the hallway. "I should go. I don't want him to wake up alone or something."

"Yeah." Keith shed his jacket. "Good night, Hunk."

Hunk smiled, warm and genuine. "Sweet dreams, Keith."

With that, he left Keith alone in the dark, and Keith changed into the clothes he was offered before lying back, pulling the blankets over himself, and settling down for the night.

He'd barely been lying on the pull-out bed for longer than a few minutes before a weight sank into the mattress beside him.

"I know it's you," murmured Keith, not bothering to open his eyes.

"And you'd be right," said the cheerful maybe-New Zealander accent Keith newly recognized as belonging to the cashier at the supermarket.

"Tell me something," mumbled Keith, already heavy with sleep. "Is Lance really going to be okay?"

"I knew you were bluffing," said Coran cheerfully. "Unfortunately, I can't tell you that for sure. I'm the Ghost of Christmas _Present._ The future's a little out of my jurisdiction."

"What about now?" Keith clutched a fistful of his pillow. "If you didn't lead me onto the bridge like that, would he have been fine without me pushing him? Would he have changed his mind on his own? Or would he be...?"

"That's a question I _could_ answer," said Coran. "But I'd rather not."

Keith held his pillow tighter.

That was enough of an answer.

"He's all right for now," said Coran. "That's all you need to know."

A warm hand fell on Keith's head and smoothed down his hair.

"Get some sleep," hushed Coran. "You still have a full Christmas Day you need to be present for."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that sincere concern I detect, Mullet?
> 
> Oh! And happy Yule. :D


	9. Breakfast

Keith was a light sleeper. The slightest disturbance, a light where it shouldn't have been, the faintest presence of a shadow, was more than enough to jolt him awake.

When the faintest weight lowered itself into the bed beside Keith, Keith forgot, briefly, where he was, who he was with, and he jerked back, eyes flying open, pillow clutched to his chest.

"Well, good morning!" Lance smirked down at him, a plate in either hand. "Kinda jumpy, arencha?"

"Uh..." Keith lowered the pillow. "I usually sleep...alone."

"Yeah, I got that." Lance scooted closer and offered Keith the plate in his right hand. "Hunk made waffles."

Uncertain, Keith reached for his plate. "Where _is_ Hunk?"

"In here!" came Hunk's voice from around the corner that led to the kitchen. "I'll be with you guys in a minute!"

"Okay..." Keith got comfortable in his corner of the pull-out bed. He'd have to thank Hunk later, when he didn't have to awkwardly yell it from another room.

Instead, he cut into his waffle with the side of his fork and watched Lance do the same with his own.

"...You look like you're feeling better," he noted.

"Yeah," said Lance. "I'm operating at about fifty percent right now."

"And yesterday?"

"Like, a zero when you found me," said Lance. "Then, like, maybe a sixty for about ten minutes thanks to the adrenaline of almost dying and a hot guy straddling me in the middle of the street—"

Keith choked before even taking a bite of his waffle.

"—and then, like, a two, tops, for the rest of the night."

Keith stared at Lance, stunned, breathless, confused.

Lance looked back at him, just as confused for only a moment, and then his face dropped. Not in sadness or concern, but in disappointment.

"Like you haven't noticed you're completely gorgeous."

"Uh..." said Keith, again, who still wasn't used to talking to people. "I... _Thank...you?_ "

"You're welcome," said Lance, bright and casual.

"You're, uh..." Keith searched through his brain for words that didn't sound like flirting. "...You're also...nice-looking."

Lance laughed. "Man, you _really_ had to struggle for that one, didn't you?"

"It wasn't— I'm not—" Keith sighed. "It's true, okay?"

"Oh, I know," said Lance brightly, and he took a bite of his waffle.

Keith, worrying whether Lance really believed he meant that honestly, followed suit and bit into his own waffle.

His eyes flew open.

"What the fuck am I eating?"

"I hope that's a _good_ 'what the fuck am I eating'," said Hunk, who had just appeared in the doorway carrying two glasses of milk. "Because I can honestly say I've never heard anyone say that about my cooking before, except for that _one time_ when _someone_ switched the salt with the sugar in my kitchen."

"I wanted to see if you'd notice," said Lance. "You know, a good chef taste tests their creation before passing it onto unsuspecting pranksters."

"It's a good 'what the fuck'," assured Keith before the playful argument could escalate. "Really good. Thank you. I've just...never eaten a waffle that tasted good."

" _Thank you,_ Keith." Hunk set one of the glasses of milk on the end table nearest to Lance. "You're not lactose intolerant or anything, are you?"

"Me?" Keith's eyes darted to the second glass of milk. "No, I... I can drink milk."

"Good," said Hunk. "I didn't think to ask before pouring."

He passed the glass to Keith and disappeared into the kitchen. Keith found himself smiling as he watched Hunk walk away. He seemed to be in better spirits, too. Keith supposed he and Lance must have had the chance to talk in private before he woke up. Any awkwardness from the night before was completely gone.

"So," said Hunk as he walked back inside with a glass of milk and a plate of his own. "What are our plans for today?"

"Plans?" asked Keith.

"You know," said Lance. "'Christmas' plans."

"My family lives in Arizona." Hunk lowered himself into the armchair adjacent to the pull-out bed. "I couldn't make it out there this year because I kind of blew my annual flight budget when my sister had her kid. I'll be FaceTiming them later, but I'm free most of the day, and..."

His eyes wandered toward Lance, who completely ignored the fact that he was being stared at.

Okay, so not _all_ of the awkwardness was gone.

"So we were thinking we could do something else today," said Hunk. "I know you both probably would appreciate having your clothes from yesterday thrown in the wash while you're still in your pyjamas—Lance especially—"

"Yes, _please,_ " said Lance emphatically.

"...So you'll have until they're dry to think of something we can do," said Hunk, eyeing Lance. "We didn't want to decide what to do without you, Keith. You know, since you're not only the one non-Christmas-celebrater among us but also the newest member of our tiny friend family. We didn't want you to feel left out."

Keith's fork froze partway to his mouth, and the sliver of waffle he'd been about to eat slipped off and landed in the pool of syrup beneath.

Newest member of _what?_

Keith darted his gaze between Lance—who was barely paying attention to the conversation—and Hunk—who was still smiling, but a little more anxiously than he had been a moment ago.

Keith had never been accepted into a group so quickly. And while he knew why—saving someone's life was no small act—he still didn't really know how to handle the situation. It was entirely new to him.

"I mean, you don't have to stick around," said Hunk hurriedly. "If you just want to go home, we totally get it. Like, under no circumstances are you obligated to—"

"I want to stay," said Keith, just as urgent as Hunk.

Lance, who'd been staring into his waffle, lifted his head.

"I mean..." Keith cleared his throat. "If you guys really want to hang out—"

"Of course we do!" said Lance, surprising a jump out of Keith with his sudden enthusiasm.

"Yeah!" Hunk chimed in. "Just tell us if you think of anything you want to do."

Keith looked at the plate on his lap and speared the piece of waffle he'd dropped with the end of his fork. He didn't need the time he was given. He already had an idea.

"How do you guys feel about being outside in the cold?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got it done before midnight, technically, so HA.


	10. One Perfect Day

Steam rose in coils from the surface of the cocoa Hunk insisted on buying from a touristy little street cart. Its warmth spread into Keith's freezing fingertips, sending hot tingles zigzagging all the way into his bones as they melted out of the ice sculpture that had been made of them.

Lance sidled next to Keith until their shoulders touched and took a drink from his own paper cup, also courtesy of Hunk. He came away from his drink with a nose covered in whipped cream.

Keith tried his hardest not to laugh, but that just resulted in him turning away from Lance and pressing his face into his own shoulder, which was hard to ignore.

"What are _you_ laughing at, mullet?"

Keith cleared his throat. "Nothing," he said with an utterly straight face. "Definitely not anything on your nose."

Lance cocked an eyebrow and wiped the end of his nose with the side of his thumb, pulling it back to reveal a not-insignificant amount of whipped cream. Lance screamed through closed lips and turned away to wipe frantically at his nose until whipped cream stopped coming up.

The laughter Keith stifled came rolling back at full volume and Lance turned back around, the side of his whipped cream-covered thumb pressed into his mouth.

"Yeah, yuk it up, _Keith..._ "

Hunk joined them after paying for their cocoa and took a big drink of his own. He screamed in the back of his throat, echoing Lance's, and fanned his mouth, tongue sticking out.

"Oh, so good," he sighed. "So hot, but so good."

Keith let out another, softer chuckle, and set off down the path, trusting Lance and Hunk to follow him.

Antok Park. For the first time in years, Antok Park.

Looking across the rolling hills felt a little like coming home. Keith took a deep, deep breath that filled his chest to the point of strain and let it out in a long, white puff of chilly condensation.

He'd never given a post-Shiro Antok Park much thought. Or, more specifically, he'd not given Antok Park much thought at all until the day before, when Allura led him through an old memory.

Hunk and Lance couldn't have known what it meant to him. They would have just seen some rolling hills, frozen ponds, picnic tables, and playground equipment. But to Keith, it was like knocking on the barrier of a frozen world and watching time catch up as the walls around it crumbled.

He led strangers into a sacred place he'd been so afraid of setting foot in by himself that he hadn't even realized he'd been scared. He'd just removed it from his mind until he was ready to face his memories.

Allura had given him the push he needed to look into the past and come to terms with what he'd lost.

Maybe Coran was there to make him look at what he hadn't.

Like Antok Park, which still stood in the same place it always had. Waiting.

Waiting for him.

"Hey, check it out!"

A nudge came to Keith's side, jerking him unceremoniously out of his contemplation.

He looked at Lance, then followed his arm to see him pointing at the sky.

A tiny smile warmed Keith's lips.

"Snow."

A tiny flurry had started just overhead and was making its way slowly down to the ground.

"Hey, a white Christmas!" Hunk broke out into a grin from Lance's other shoulder. "It's been forever since I've seen one of those!"

"Dude," Lance jumped into his enthusiasm and turned eagerly toward Keith. "One time, when I was ten—"

Chipper conversation followed them all the way down the path as they finished their cocoa one by one.

As they approached the playground end of the park, Lance caught sight of an abandoned basketball rolling around the court and tossed his cup into a garbage can on his way downhill to grab it.

Keith stayed on the path with Hunk, idly watching Lance bounce the ball on the concrete.

"Score!" Lance grinned up the hill. "It's not even flat! Keith, get down here!"

"Why me?" called Keith.

"One-on-one!" called Lance. "Unless you're chicken!"

Keith rolled his eyes with a smile and sent Hunk a conspiratorial look.

"He _will_ make chicken noises at you for the rest of the week," said Hunk.

"Guess I have no choice, then." Keith shed the heavy, winter coat Hunk had insisted he borrow and passed it to his owner.

His empty cup joined Lance's in the garbage, and he set foot on the court.

Opposite Lance, he watched his opponent spin the ball in his hands, a smug smirk planted firmly on his face.

"So what do I get if I win?" He bounced the ball off the ground and back into his hands. "I'm thinking maybe a k—? _Hey!_ "

Lance tried to bounce the ball again, only for Keith to jump in and snatch it.

" _Keith!_ "

"Gotta be quick."

" _We weren't playing yet!_ "

"Says who?"

Lance growled in a way that was clearly playful rather than genuinely angry and tried to steal the ball back.

Keith twisted out of his reach, then the other way, then threw the ball high over Lance's head for his first point.

"Lucky shot!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! Two out of three!"

"You're on!"

Keith got the second basket as easily as the first. Then a third with a little more effort.

When the fourth point went to Lance, Keith realized he hadn't just been living in the past when it came to Shiro. He just wasn't as fit as he had been in high school. Two years of not leaving the house did that to people, he supposed.

As Lance stole the fifth and sixth points of the game and Keith's exhaustion only deepened, he had no choice but to accept that his stamina just wasn't what it used to be.

Keith managed to steal the ball, just once, right before Lance could make his fourth point and take the lead.

"Hunk!"

Hunk, who had taken a seat on the snow-dusted slope right beside the basketball court, lifted his head, suddenly more alert. "Yeah?"

"Your turn!" Keith tossed the ball into Hunk's lap. "I'm tagging you in!"

"What?!" Lance squawked, offended. "I was about to kick your ass!"

"In your dreams!" said Keith, already halfway to the hill to take Hunk's seat and rest his shaking legs.

"I'm, uh, not very good at basketball," said Hunk, only for Keith's ears.

"I wore him down for you," said Keith, flopping onto the frosted grass.

Hunk took a deep breath. "Okay..."

He handed Keith the fluffy coat he'd been wearing before and pushed himself to his feet.

Keith watched the start of the game, watched Hunk score his first basket (meaning Lance really must have been worn out, which made Keith feel at least a little bit better about his strategic retreat), and promptly flopped back into the grass to watch the snow descend from the cloudy sky.

He closed his eyes, content just to catch his breath, and heard Hunk cheer and laugh over the sound of Lance's tired groan. A smirk crept onto Keith's lips.

He wasn't sure how long the game went on from that point. But it was long enough that when Lance and Hunk called it and joined Keith on the grass, winging him on either side, and Keith opened his eyes, the sky was darker, and the warm, yellow lights that lined the path bathed them in their light.

For a single content, lingering moment, Keith heard no voices, no sounds from the city that surrounded them, just Hunk and Lance's breathing.

And then, faintly, Keith heard music.

He sat up, and a light dusting of snow rolled off his chest and onto his lap.

"What's that?"

"Dunno." Hunk sat up with him. "Maybe some kind of public event for Christmas?"

"Huh..." Keith crossed his arms over his legs. Of all the times he'd gone to Antok Park with the Shiroganes, he'd never stayed all the way to sunset. Maybe it was meant to welcome the night, or maybe it was simply new.

Lance sat up with them, entering Keith's peripheral vision. "...Want to check it out?"

Hunk flinched behind Keith. "Uh—"

"Sure," said Keith.

"Really?" asked Hunk.

"Yeah." Keith climbed to his feet and pulled Hunk's coat back on. "I like music."

"Okay." Hunk stood with him. "Okay, cool! Then let's go!"

Lance started to sit up, only to flop down on his back with a great, dramatic groan.

"Alas!" he cried. "Hunk hath kicked my arse too hard!" He draped an arm over his eyes. "Woe is me, for all my energy is lost to the ball of baskets!"

Keith rolled his eyes and bent down to offer Lance his hand. "Come on, Lancelot. You're not slain yet."

Lance peered out from under his arm at the hand Keith offered him, then up to his face.

He took the hand, and Keith had just pulled him off the ground when Lance flopped forward and draped an arm across Keith's shoulders, weighing him down.

"Carry me."

"Yeah, that's not happening."

"Aww, come on, Keith, you're _clearly_ strong enough to hold my weight! You did it yesterday!"

"Doesn't mean I'm doing it today."

"Come on!"

" _No._ "

Lance's pleas to be held followed them from the basketball court all the way to the source of the music, when Lance finally quieted.

And Keith would be lying if he said he didn't know why.

"Whoa," breathed Hunk.

And Keith concurred. _Whoa._

It was definitely a Christmas event. There was no doubt about that. The red curtains that protected the stage from the snow and the big, glowing gingerbread man in the Santa hat and the countless colored lights made that hard to ignore.

But as garishly Christmassy as it was, Keith couldn't stifle his grudging respect.

He'd seen that stage dozens of times in his childhood, yet not once had he ever seen it in use until _that moment,_ when it was absolutely _blinding,_ and he had to admire the boldness of anyone who would go on a stage like _that_ wearing _elf costumes._

And the performers were definitely wearing elf costumes.

At least they weren't actually playing Christmas music. Just folk. Keith could handle folk. Even elf folk.

Lance snorted. "Jesus Christ."

"Look at all these people," murmured Keith, more impressed the longer he looked. The seats lined up in front of the stage were a solid 80% full, and there was a long stretch of open space between that seating and the stage where nearly as many people were dancing. One of the dancers, he couldn't help but notice, had red hair tied back in a ponytail and a familiar, thick, ginger mustache.

"...We're totally dancing," said Lance, half-laughing.

"What happened to _thine energy hath been depleted?_ " scoffed Keith, unimpressed and unsurprised.

"Oh, would you look at that," said Lance, faux-surprised. "Looks like mine energy hath been fully replenished by thither giant Ginger Claus."

" _Lance—_ " chided Hunk, but before he could get a second word out, Lance had grabbed both him and Keith by their wrists and started to drag them downhill to the space in front of the stage.

Once Lance had pulled them to a space open wide enough for a dancer and his two partners.

"I'm not—" Keith stole a furtive look at the stage. Now that he was down there, felt a bit like he was crashing a party he wasn't invited to. "I'm not...a very good dancer."

Lance just scoffed. "You're not supposed to be _good,_ you're supposed to have _fun._ Now..." Lance took a step back and bowed low to both of them, offering a hand to each of them. "May I have these dances?"

Hunk scoffed and rolled his eyes.

His gaze caught Keith's, probably to make sure he was really comfortable with joining in on a Christmas-related event.

Keith looked around. Truth be told, he wasn't sure whether he was comfortable or not.

But he knew he would have been if it was Shiro who dragged him along.

And when he looked back at Lance, still patiently waiting for his hands to be taken, Keith began to think that maybe... Maybe he could learn to relax with Lance, too.

He took Lance's left hand.

Hunk, seeing that, took his right.

And Lance yanked them both to him fast and hard enough that they all crashed into each other with a series of "oof"s and began laughing.

Dancing as a trio was clumsy. None of them really had a clue what they were doing, from what Keith could tell. Lance and Hunk both had _a_ rhythm, though they seemed independent from one another, and Keith struggled to find any rhythm at all, but Lance was right. It was about having fun.

And Keith _was_ having fun.

After three songs, Lance caught Keith's eye, a twinkle in his own and a grin on his face.

And years later, when Keith gathered enough nerve, he would admit to Lance that, though he'd called Lance handsome at breakfast, and he'd meant it, that moment was the first time he really noticed that Lance was attractive _to him,_ in a way that made his stomach flutter and his heart leap into his throat.

And Lance would complain about it taking so long for _days._

But years before they could have that conversation, and perhaps seconds before Keith could really let that realization sink in, Hunk's phone beeped at him, and he let go of Keith's hand to reach into his pocket for it.

"Shoot, right, I'm supposed to FaceTime my family." He took a deep breath and let go of Lance's hand so that the only hands left joined were Lance's left with Keith's right. "You guys ready to go?"

"Yeah," said Lance. "I'm ready. Keith?"

Keith let go of Lance's hand and shoved his own back into his pocket.

"Let's go." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2310 words of straight fluff. No, I will not apologize for the diabetes you just got.


	11. Tzedakah

By the time Hunk's car pulled into his driveway, the ground had turned fully white.

Hunk invited Keith to stay for dinner, and Keith agreed, supposing that was what Coran intended for him to do.

Hunk grinned and gave Keith a thumbs up before disappearing into his bedroom, and when Keith returned to the living room, he found Lance sitting on the couch, legs pulled to his chest, energy from before gone. If Lance said he was at fifty percent at breakfast, and he was at two percent the night before, Keith guessed he was probably at around twenty percent.

He did smile when Keith returned from the hallway, though, and he patted the space beside him on the pull-out bed.

Keith joined him without a second thought.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Lance, though his gaze parted from Keith's. "Yeah..."

Keith frowned. He took a deep breath to ask if Lance was sure, but before Keith got the chance, Lance offered what was on his mind on his own.

"I knew you before the thing at the store," he explained. "Well... Sort of. Hunk and I used to hang out at the mall a lot, and I saw you and...your brother, I think, sometimes."

Keith raised his eyebrows. Weird, but he didn't know why Lance decided to bring that up.

"I always wanted to talk to you," said Lance. "You just seemed like someone I'd get along with, you know? But... I don't know, I guess I was just scared of rejection? So I never did."

Keith waited. He could tell there was something else, something Lance wasn't saying.

"...I wasn't expecting you to _literally_ bump into me during the worst part of my life." Lance chuckled. "And you just..."

"Immediately called you a fucking idiot," mumbled Keith.

"Yep." Lance gripped the sleeves of his jacket. "Yep..."

"I'm sorry."

"You already said that." Lance pressed his face into his knees. "It's okay."

Keith's hand hovered over Lance's arm. He didn't feel like it was okay.

"...Lance?"

"You're about to ask _why_ it's the worst part of my life, aren't you?"

"Good guess," said Keith cautiously.

Lance didn't answer. Didn't explain.

Keith moved his hand to Lance's back. It did nothing to ease the tension in his shoulders.

"...I'm not going to reject you," said Keith.

Lance laughed. It was bitter and cold. He didn't believe it. Perhaps he couldn't. Not then. Not yet.

Keith could only think of one way to make Lance trust him.

"That brother?" Keith leaned into Lance's side. "...I lost him two years ago. Four years ago, I lost my dad in a fire. ...Seven years ago, my mom died in a work accident." Keith shrugged. "I've always been...hesitant to make friends. I had Shiro, and that was all I wanted. I think, since he was sick, that some part of me was scared that if I met other people and spent time with them instead of him, I'd waste the time I had left with him by spending it with someone else." He scowled at his knees. "I guess I got what I wanted. I spent every minute I could with Shiro, so I was there for his death, and...no one else was. The few people I had in my life through him, his parents and his boyfriend...the few people out there who would have known how it felt to lose someone as amazing as Shiro..."

Keith sighed.

"I couldn't even face them. I haven't said a word to any of them since the funeral."

In the corner of his eye, Lance lifted his head, just a bit. "...Have you just been _alone_ for—?"

"For the past two years," said Keith. "Yeah."

"Jesus," breathed Lance. "I thought just a week was bad."

"The point is, I'm not going to leave you," said Keith. "Today was...really cool. For the first time in my life, I _want_ a friendship like this. Like what I had with you and Hunk today. So tell me what's going on with you. Just so I can tell you that everything's going to be okay between us. That it's not as bad as you think it will be. Because it's not."

He looked Lance in the eye.

Lance reluctantly looked back.

"...Shit. You just _had_ to go and say it like _that,_ didn't you?"

"Yes," said Keith plainly.

Lance pressed his face into his hands, drew a deep breath from the point where his palms met, and muttered a soft, pained, "...I'm on academic suspension."

Keith tilted his head. "...What?"

"I failed all my classes." Lance pressed his hands into his eyes. "Like, _all of them,_ except _one,_ where I scraped by with a low C, so I'm on academic suspension for a semester _and I can't go home, I can't, I—_ "

"Lance."

" _—failed my family, I failed all the people who put money into the crowdfund that got me into college in the first place—_ "

"Lance—"

" _—and I tried, I really tried my hardest, but I just couldn't do it so there's no point in going back after the suspension's over because nothing's going to change because I'm not cut out for it, I'm not smart enough, I'm a fucking idiot—_ "

" _Lance!_ "

Keith grabbed Lance's hands and yanked them down from his face. The eyes behind those hands were red and shining and so, so sad. They were hard to look at. But Keith found the courage to hold his gaze.

"You're not stupid. Failing your classes doesn't mean you're stupid. It means college is really, really hard, and it's stressful, and getting stressed out makes it even harder. I didn't try at all because I knew I'd never be able to handle it. Not on top of what happened with Shiro."

"Everyone else can do it—!"

"No, they can't," assured Keith. "Plenty of people don't."

Lance sniffed.

"All that stuff you just said..." Keith squeezed Lance's hands. "It was all about what other people would think of you, or whether you're a failure. Are any of the reasons you went to college because you _wanted_ to? If you didn't go back, would you miss out on your dream job? Was there a class you really, really wanted to take? Was there something you really wanted to learn how to do?"

Lance swallowed. "...I don't know, _maybe._ "

"You don't sound that sure," said Keith.

"Well, what was I supposed to do?" asked Lance, teetering on the edge of angry. "Just _not go to college?_ Every job needs—"

"Not every job."

"Almost!"

"What do you want to do, Lance?" asked Keith.

"I don't know!" cried Lance. "Not live out of my car for the rest of my life!"

"That's not your only option!"

"What else _is_ there, Keith?"

"There are _so_ many things you could do that don't need a degree, Lance!"

"Yeah, either get lucky or get a minimum wage job that doesn't pay enough to live on!"

"Then get a roommate!"

"Who's going to want to live with _me, Keith?!_ "

"I would!"

"Bullshit! You don't even know me!"

"Well, _I_ do."

Keith flinched.

So did Lance.

Both turned warily toward the mouth of the hallway, where Hunk stood, arms crossed.

"So you guys can stop yelling," he said. "Lance, which store is your car parked in front of? Let's go get it and start moving your stuff in."

Lance pressed his face into his hands again. "Hunk, don't..."

"Don't what?" asked Hunk. "Love my best friend? Want to spend every day with him because he's awesome? Is that what I'm not supposed to do? Because too late. Way too late. Like, ten years too late."

Lance sniffed. "You don't have to do that."

"I think he knows that, Lance." Keith grabbed Lance's arm, gentle, but still firm. "He wants to. And my offer was real, too. I don't know _why_ you'd need to hear something like this, but your worth as a person isn't decided by how well you do in school."

Lance sobbed. " _God._ Why— How did you just make me feel like I've been making a big deal over nothing?"

"It's because you kind of _have,_ buddy." Hunk crossed the room and sat on the edge of the pull-out bed. With thick, forceful arms, he reached across and pulled Lance into the tightest, most wholly enveloping hug Keith had ever seen.

"I've already put so much money into getting into school," mumbled Lance. "I can't just not go back..."

"Sunken cost fallacy," said Hunk firmly. "You shouldn't keep making a mistake you know you've been making, even if you've been making it for a long time. And if school is making you want to _literally die,_ I think it's pretty safe to say it's a mistake."

Lance sniffed.

"I'm not friends with you because of your grades," said Hunk. "Your family doesn't love you because of your grades."

"I didn't have the best day I've had in years because of your grades, either," said Keith.

"If you called your mom," said Hunk, "I bet she'd tell you the same thing."

Keith watched Lance's hand grab onto the fabric of Hunk's shirt and hold on as if his life depended on it. And, perhaps, it did.

"I can't," mumbled Lance.

"Tonight," said Hunk. "You can't _tonight._ But you love her, and she loves you, and I bet, if you give it a few more days, you'll realize you really, really want to talk to her. And we'll call her together. But, for tonight, if you want to just stay with me and Keith, that's okay." Hunk looked over the top of Lance's head at Keith. "We'll be here. Right?"

He held out his arm.

Keith looked at the space he opened, a place perfectly carved out for Keith, because he needed Keith, and Lance needed Keith, and Keith needed both of them.

And Keith inched forward, wrapped an arm around Lance, and joined him in the warmth of Hunk's chest.

"We're here," said Keith.

And Lance turned and pressed his face into Keith's chest, wordless.

Keith closed his eyes, and for the first time in two years, he really, truly felt like he was part of something. Part of someone else's circle, someone else's life. And he wanted to keep Lance—and Hunk—safe and happy, so he could be with them for a long, long time.

And just as Lance's sobs began to slow, and his shaking stilled, a voice to Keith's left called out to him.

"Your time's up, I'm afraid."

Keith furrowed his brow. He didn't want to let go.

"I know," said Coran. "But the present is fleeting, and you can't hold onto it forever."

A cold hand reached through Lance's shoulder, took hold of Keith's fingers, and pulled him with a gentle but unyielding force from his warm embrace, from his body, and from the happiness he had no choice but to leave behind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so tired...  
> merry christmas


	12. FUTURE

Keith stood with Coran, who had aged to the point where lines dug deep beneath his eyes and the long hair slicked back over his head had dulled its red color.

He watched himself from afar, watched Lance cling to him, watched his own hand card through Lance's hair while Hunk held them like a hen warming her chicks.

"...Is any of this real?" he asked. Knew he _had_ to ask. It was all so strange. "Or am I going to wake up the day after tomorrow and find out that I never really stopped Lance from jumping?"

"How real do you want it to be?"

"That's not an answer—"

Keith turned to face Coran, to try to have a conversation with him, only to find him gone.

Only to find Hunk's entire house gone.

Keith blinked as he turned his head. Simply blinked. And when he opened his eyes again, he found himself back in his own home.

The lights were out, but it seemed darker than it had ever been, as if all the lights had gone out not only in Keith's house, but all over the world.

Unlike when Allura found him and when she brought him back, Keith didn't find himself in his living room, but in his bedroom.

He felt around for his bed and lowered himself onto the edge.

It had taken Coran an hour to appear after Allura moved on from him.

Not so with the Ghost of Christmas Future.

Deep in the shadows, a figure seemed to coalesce from the darkness itself.

Keith couldn't quite see it at first, but he could make out movement. A black pen leaving black writing on black paper.

"Hi," said Keith.

He got no answer from the shadows.

"I know who you are," said Keith. "And I know how this goes. This is the part where everything goes to shit, right?"

Nothing. Silence. The ripping of a cape, perhaps, in the long, should-be-empty hallway.

"I'm right, aren't I?" asked Keith. "This is the part of the game where you take me down the worst possible path and show me just how shitty my life can get if I don't change my ways, right? Well..."

Keith clapped his hands on his knees and stood from his bed.

"I'm ready. Bring me your worst. Whatever you've got, I can handle it."

The shadows remained silent, but there was something different about the silence. Something contemplative. Like it was mulling over Keith's words.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Keith. "Are we going or not? If you're going to drop me in a nightmare, you better hurry up and do it."

The darkness screamed.

Stomach-curdling, blood-chilling, brain-scattering. Like wind wailing through a barely-open window and drilling a hole through Keith's throat.

Before Keith could even cover his ears, the shadows lunged forward. They slammed a cold hand across Keith's eyes, thumb and fingers digging hard into his temples.

In an instant, the howling scream ceased, gravity released its hold, and Keith fell deep, deep into sleep.

Keith couldn't be certain how long he slept, or whether time even mattered anymore.

All he knew was that when he woke up, he was warm, and he was happy.

His waking was gradual. Keith could guess he was in a bed, under thick, soft blankets. The pillow under his cheek was even softer. Sunlight streamed in from the windows.

The arm wrapped around him slid from his stomach to his chest.

" _AAGH!_ "

Keith scrambled out of the arms he was in and hit the wall beneath the window. He turned around frantically, sliding part of the way between the mattress and the wall in the process.

A soft laugh floated across the mattress, and Keith's unwitting bed companion lifted his head, smiling blearily, piercing blues half-closed.

"Every time I think you've stopped being so jumpy in the mornings, you prove me wrong."

The man sat up, and the thick, teal blanket that laid across them slid heavily to his lap, revealing a bare, sandy-brown chest.

His eyes were older, gentler, but only just, and his smirk was exactly the same as it had been when he'd challenged Keith to a game of basketball just the day before.

Every milliliter of air in his chest rushed out through his open mouth. He swallowed, hard, and gripped the edge of the sheets of the bed beneath his hands.

"... _Lance?_ "

"No, Keith." Lance rolled his eyes, a smile on his face, and held out his hands. "Some _other_ guy cuddling with you at seven in the morning."

Keith's eyes flicked between the hands held out for him and the open smile hovering a few inches above.

With shaking hands, he took the pair outstretched toward him and allowed himself to be pulled out of the crevasse between the edge of the bed and the wall.

Three little words swirled frantically in his head as he lowered himself on top of the mattress he'd nearly fallen from.

His knee pressed into Lance's, and Lance pulled his hands close to kiss them as easily as if he'd kissed them a million times before.

And those three words slammed into the walls of Keith's skull like dice rattling in a bowl.

_What...the fuck?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is my shortest chapter, but it really should have been part of yesterday's chapter if not for the fact that I was sleep-deprived and unwell yesterday. And I cried today, so be nice plz
> 
> And happy Kwanzaa!


	13. Someday Soon

"Are you okay?" asked Lance, smile stalwart on his face, but eyes softening with sincere concern Keith could never have predicted from just the one day they spent together. "You're usually chill by now."

Lance reached for Keith's face and ran a hand from his temple to his jaw.

"Yeah," rasped Keith through a deep desire to figure out exactly what was happening. If Lance had, at some point, started living with him instead of Hunk as a _friend_ and they just slept in the same bed in their underwear and...cuddled...because they just _did,_ or...if... "Uh... Yeah. N-Nightmare."

"Oh. Guess that explains it." Lance lowered his hand and made a face. "Wait. _Ugh,_ it's not one of those dreams where someone's a jerk and you wake up mad at the person even though you know they did nothing wrong, is it? Was Dream-Me a jerk to you?"

"Uhh..." Keith swallowed. That was a better excuse than anything he could think of. "Yeah. Yeah, it was one of those."

" _Damn_ it," huffed Lance. "Stupid Dream-Me." He held up his hands. "But okay. All right. If you need space, I can give it to you. That's fine."

Lance leaned in close and pressed his lips to Keith's forehead without a warning. So much blood rushed to Keith's face, he wasn't sure the room was still upright. He _was_ sure, however, that his pounding heart was probably on full display without a shirt to cover his chest and the ribcage that threatened to burst out of it.

"Go take your shower," said Lance easily. "I'll make breakfast. Sound good?"

"Mmhmm," squeaked Keith, who was afraid that if he opened his mouth even a little, a scream would come out.

"Great." Lance stepped down from the bed and headed for the door without bothering to get dressed.

Keith tried not to stare. He _really_ did. But, in his defense, Lance was hot, and...

No, yeah, that was Keith's only defense.

"Keith?"

Keith snapped his gaze away from the only clothed part of Lance's body and forced himself to make eye contact. "Yeah?"

Lance smiled over his shoulder and braced a hand on the door.

"Happy anniversary."

He blew a kiss, waved his fingers, and disappeared into the hallway.

"Happy anniversary," echoed Keith in a voice no louder than a breath, stunned almost speechless.

Okay.

Definitely not just friends who slept in the same bed and cuddled in their underwear.

Noted.

But— Anniversary? Anniversary of _what?_ Not—

Keith looked at his hands.

No new additions there, save for a couple of freckles.

He took a deep breath and pressed a hand to his chest in a plea for his heartbeat to slow. His heart didn't want to listen.

Keith thought he was prepared for anything the Ghost of Christmas Future could show him.

He thought wrong.

With a hard swallow, Keith pushed himself to the edge of the bed and stepped onto the floor.

Clothes. He needed clothes.

He climbed to his full height and made his way to a chest of drawers beside the door that led to the bathroom.

He opened the top two drawers at the same time.

Underwear drawers, both of them. One was mostly full of grays and blues. He closed that one.

The other drawer was almost entirely black. He picked a rolled-up pair of boxer briefs from the front of the drawer.

**_clatter-atter-atter_ **

A little, navy blue, velvety box Keith hadn't noticed rolled into the space the removed underwear left behind.

Keith's heart leapt into his throat. His legs felt like jelly.

But, hey, maybe it was just cufflinks. Or a tie clip. Or—

Keith opened the box, and just as quickly, he slammed it shut.

_Or...it's a sapphire ring that matches Lance's eyes. Or it's that. Cool. Cool. Great._

Keith slammed the drawer and frantically dug through the rest of the drawers for some clothes he hoped were his own.

At least he had confirmation that the anniversary he shared with Lance wasn't a _marriage_ anniversary. Yet.

Keith shuddered and stepped into the restroom with an armful of clothes.

His shower did little to calm his nerves.

When Keith emerged, wet and cold with dripping hair, he grudgingly inched his way to the kitchen, and the smell nearly knocked him off his feet.

Chocolate.

Thick, sweet, heavy chocolate.

Keith peered around the corner, equal parts relieved and disappointed to find that Lance had gotten dressed at some point.

The emerald green turtleneck that clung to his lithe figure, however, was probably just as enticing as his bare skin.

He just...looked _good._ And he knew it.

"Good morning," sang Lance cheerfully, not looking up from the pancake he'd just flipped. At least, Keith _thought_ it was a pancake, at a guess, based on how Lance was cooking it. But it was too dark. Not like it was _burned,_ but—

"Okay. Done."

Lance flipped the pancake onto a plate hidden by his frame and turned off the stove with a sound click. A plastic-sounding pop echoed from something else Keith couldn't see, and he stood awkwardly in the doorway, waiting for whatever it was Lance was finishing up without daring to move too close.

"Tah-dah!"

Lance turned around, a stack of those dark pancakes in either hand, decorated with raspberries and a syrup that stained the plates with a color too red to be maple, and a grin on his face.

"You know I'm not the cook Hunk is." He carried the plates to the table in the center of the kitchen and laid them down around a centerpiece that seemed to be made of...silk flowers and dismembered Barbies, which surely had a story behind it, and it _killed_ Keith that he couldn't ask what the hell it was.

"A couple of them are a little overcooked," continued Lance, unaware of Keith's entranced staring at what might have faded into the background for him years prior. "But I thought you deserved your favorites this morning, even if it meant they're not perfect."

Lance turned away and moved toward the coffee pot in the corner. He returned seconds later, a cup in either hand. One had the polar bears in red Santa hats from the old Coca Cola commercials along the sides, and the other was decorated with blue dreidls in various sizes. The passing question of how sincere the cups were supposed to be passed briefly through Keith's mind before Lance set the polar bear cup on the table and kept the dreidl one for himself.

 _Okay, so_ completely _ironic. Gotcha._

"You gonna sit down, or what?" asked Lance, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, uh..." Keith cleared his throat. "Yeah. Just— Yeah."

Keith scurried too quickly to his end of the table and sat down in front of the Barbie centerpiece.

Lance sat across from him, smiling.

Catching the hint that Lance was waiting for him to try his... _favorites_...before digging into his own plate.

It was weird, Keith thought, being told that a food was his favorite without even knowing what it was he was eating.

But all it took was one bite for Keith to understand what Lance was talking about.

"Holy shit."

"That bad?" asked Lance, brow lifted nervously.

"No," assured Keith. "That _good._ "

Lance sighed like the deflating of a balloon and hung his head, laughing. "Keep me in suspense a little longer next time, Keith. _Shit._ "

Keith laughed, and for the first time since landing in the future, he felt himself start to relax. Maybe there was a history between himself and Lance that he didn't know about. Maybe he was in a world he didn't yet understand and couldn't ask about. But Lance, it seemed, was still Lance. Still the same person who got whipped cream on his nose and pulled him into a dance without waiting for an answer. And being around him felt nice. Maybe being in the future for one day wouldn't be so bad.

"So..." Lance cut into his own pancakes—chocolate, with raspberry syrup—and held Keith's gaze across the table. "Hunk called this morning. Apparently, he can't make the thing because of the thing with his dad—"

Okay, regardless of how cool Lance was, the future definitely was still confusing. Keith had never hated the word "thing" more. Who the hell thought making a word so vague was a good idea?

"—but Pidge and Matt are still coming—"

Keith choked involuntarily and clapped a hand over his mouth to keep the pancake mush inside from landing on the table.

Lance frowned. "You okay?"

Keith swallowed hard and managed a nod. "W-Wrong pipe," he rasped.

Lance laughed and stood from the table. "Hold on, I'll get you a glass of water."

Keith coughed again and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, leaving a pinkish trail in its wake.

That... That was a coincidence, right? Matt was a _super_ popular name. It was probably just the name of one of their friends. No big deal, right?

Keith was still stifling coughs when Lance pressed a glass of cool water into his hand.

"Anyway, we're gonna leave at ten thirty instead of ten, since we don't have to pick Hunk up. And here's the part where I _planned_ on suggesting we could do anything with those thirty minutes we wanted, _but—_ "

Keith spluttered, his mouth full of water, and Lance frowned at him.

"...But you're clearly not in the mood this morning, and that's okay."

Keith wiped his mouth on the end of his sleeve.

He took it back. He took it all back. That thing about being okay because Lance was still fun to be around? Yeah, forget that. The future was fucking terrifying.

"Are you sure you're okay?" asked Lance, sincere worry in his eyes. "You're acting _really_ weird. And not ha-ha weird. More like 'first time I introduced you to Pidge and you were totally freaking out but trying really hard to make it seem like you weren't freaking out' weird. Do you want to call off the thing?"

"No, I..." Keith closed his eyes, still frustrated on top of everything else that he didn't know what 'the thing' was. "I'm okay." And now, on top of all _that,_ he was emphatically curious about what the deal with Pidge was. "I'm... I'm good to go to the...the _thing._ "

"All right," said Lance skeptically. "I... Okay, I know I said I was going to give you space, but just— Just one, okay?"

Before Keith could ask "One _what?_ " Lance strode up to Keith's chair and pulled him close, cradling Keith's head to his chest in the gentlest embrace Keith had ever felt.

Unafraid of Keith's still-wet hair, Lance kissed the top of his head and pressed his forehead into the part in Keith's hair.

"I love you," murmured Lance.

And Keith's heart clenched guiltily, knowing he couldn't honestly say those words back.

"...I know."

Lance laughed softly, though he still sounded worried. "Okay, Han Solo. Finish your breakfast. Big day today."

 _Big day..._ Keith closed his eyes. _Oh, boy..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chaos.


	14. We All Will Be Together

Keith realized where they were headed long before he and Lance reached their destination.

He recognized the roads. He knew the shapes the trees made on the horizon as they pulled farther from the city.

His fingers tapped out an anxious rhythm on his lap, and another hand, Lance's hand, reached out to calm that rhythm.

Keith flinched, but he accepted the hand that found his own all the same. The hand that said it would all be okay.

They pulled to a stop outside the gates, next to a maroon van. Keith had to release Lance's hand to leave the car, but as soon as the doors closed, Lance was right beside him, hand in his.

That dreadful, sparking, I-don't-want-to-be-here-right-now feeling didn't go away, but it was more manageable.

Lance pulled Keith's hand into the pocket of his own coat with a smile, and Keith tried to smile back.

"You don't have to," said Lance, his voice soft and assuring. "Come on. They're waiting for us."

He led Keith along the asphalt path, through rows and rows of stones and statues bearing names and dates that meant nothing to Keith, each of them half-buried in snow, many of them hiding the names that once belonged to the skeletons beneath them under that same snow.

As Keith and Lance approached the single headstone out of the yard that meant something to Keith, he noticed a flash of blue standing boldly across the white earth. A tarp, with a blanket lying over the top.

The bright color was impossible to ignore against the white snow, but just as hard to ignore were the two figures sitting on the blanket.

Someone who looked a hell of a lot like Matt Holt, and...

Well.

And Matt Holt.

Part of Keith wanted to turn around and run for the car, to lock himself inside and wait for the day to end so he could wake up in his bed having learned nothing.

Another, deeper buried part of him wanted to tear away from Lance and run to Matt and pull him into a hug that was so tight he couldn't breathe.

Because, god, Matt was almost as much Keith's family as Shiro had been, and _god,_ it had been so _long._

The result of those two clashing desires in Keith's heart was a net velocity of zero.

Keith froze.

Lance had only taken one step ahead of Keith when he noticed something was wrong and he turned around.

"Keith?" Lance stole a look at the top of the hill, then looked back at Keith. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," said Keith automatically. "Nothing, I—" He tore his gaze away from Matt. "Nothing."

The cautious concern in Lance's face disappeared all at once, replaced with an unimpressed, deadpan stare.

"Yeah, uh-huh, super convincing. Seriously, you've been weird all morning. What's up with you?"

" _Nothing._ I'm _fine._ "

"Babe." Lance took his hand out of Keith's, out of his pocket, and cradled Keith's face in his hands. "I know you. You're not fine. It's like you just got back from some other reality where you were an abused dog or something."

Some of the concern from before crept back into the corners of Lance's irritation.

"I believed you when you said you had a weird dream about me, but it's not just me. It's Pidge and Matt, too."

His thumbs brushed two warm little rainbow shapes under Keith's eyes.

"No one's going to hurt you. You know that, right?"

 _No,_ said Keith's heart.

"Why would I think someone was going to hurt me?" said his lips.

Lance narrowed his eyes and held Keith's face tighter.

Keith sighed. "Okay. You caught me. I'm just a little anxious today. It'll go away tomorrow."

Lance looked skeptical. "Promise?" he whispered.

"Promise," said Keith. "And...if it doesn't, we can talk all about it tomorrow."

Lance frowned, but he kissed the end of Keith's nose and pulled him into a loving, tender embrace.

"Okay," murmured Lance. "I can take that compromise.

Keith closed his eyes. The hand at the back of his neck was gentle and assuring. Lance's warmth was better than the blankets Keith had found himself in when he woke up that morning. It all felt so perfect.

He could understand how he could get used to feeling that way sometime in the future.

**_SPLAT_ **

Lance screamed and broke the embrace, turning around to point an accusatory finger up the hill. " _Pidge!_ "

"Stop being so gross!" The mini-Matt at the top of the hill prepared another snowball. "Have some respect for the dead!"

Lance growled and bent down to scoop up a handful of the snow at his feet.

Keith set a hand on his wrist. "Maybe not here," he suggested, though he could feel himself smiling.

"Ugh, you're right," grumbled Lance. "But this is going straight down the back of Pidge's shirt."

They ascended the hill side-by-side, and when they got to the top, Matt approached Keith, and Lance veered away from them both, giving them a moment of privacy.

As easily as Lance had, Matt pulled Keith into a hug, albeit one much less tender than Lance's had felt.

He patted Keith once on the back and pulled away, smiling. "Hey, dork."

"Hey," said Keith. He didn't know what else to say. But that seemed to be fine with Matt.

Pidge screamed, and they both turned to see Pidge squirming, frantically shaking their coat by the shoulders while Lance laughed over their shoulder.

"We're already in a cemetery, Lance! The temptation to add a new grave is _real_ strong!"

Matt clicked his tongue. "There they go."

"I had nothing to do with that," said Keith, maybe a little too quickly.

Matt laughed, and Keith felt a little more at home.

* * *

They talked. From the moment Keith and Lance arrived until the sun began to set, they talked.

They talked, and they ate the lunch Matt and Pidge brought, and they talked, and they drank sparkling grape juice, and they talked, and Lance leaned into Keith’s side to keep him warm, and they talked. About life, about Shiro, about things Keith couldn’t keep up with because they were too recent and things that hadn’t changed at all, about love.

About how Matt hadn’t found anyone new, not because he still ached for Shiro, but simply because he was content with his family and his work until the right person came along.

About how Pidge’s freelance career in web design had inspired Lance to pursue his own passions, which led him to work at the dance studio just a few blocks from where he lived with Keith.

About how Keith had—up until that day, apparently—let his walls down and come out of his shell in ways he’d never thought possible.

It all seemed too easy, too good to be true, but Keith found himself finding peace with Lance and Pidge and Matt up until the day ended and the sun began to set, and Lance offered to help Pidge fold up the tarp and blanket, and Keith found himself standing away from them, cleaning the snow from Shiro’s grave.

Alone.

With Matt.

“How did we get here?” he asked, pretending, somewhat effectively, to just be making conversation rather than acting in the pursuit of real knowledge. “I mean...from me being too ashamed to talk to you or...anyone else, to…”

He looked over his shoulder, at Lance, who had wrapped an arm around Pidge’s neck and seemed to be in the process of making their hair as tangled as possible.

“A whole lot of guts on your part,” said Matt, kneeling by Shiro’s grave to push some snow out of the letters. “A whole lot of crying on my part. Lots of hugs. _More_ crying.”

Keith smiled.

“And effort,” continued Matt. “A lot of it. From both of us. And from Lance, who figured out I was Pidge’s brother because _someone_ isn’t the best liar and got all weird when he ‘met’ Pidge.”

Keith’s eyes lingered on Lance, at the way he lit up when he started roughhousing with Pidge. “He’s done a lot for me,” realized Keith.

“You’ve done a lot for him, too, though,” said Matt. “Don’t forget that.”

He sighed, and Keith took his eyes off Lance to see him rest his arms on the top of Shiro’s headstone, his left hand hanging loosely from his right wrist. “Have you asked him yet?”

“Asked—? Oh.” Keith recalled the ring he found hidden in his underwear drawer. “No. Not yet.”

“Don’t take too long, all right?” Matt smiled up at Keith from where he hung off Shiro’s grave. “Life is short. Too short not to face your fears if your fears are keeping you from a happy life with the people you love. Even if you wind up getting hurt in the end…”

Matt stood, though his fingers still traced the top of Shiro’s headstone.

“...it’ll still be worth the risk. I promise.”

Keith looked down at the name on the front. He’d not given it much thought since Allura arrived, but for the first time, only when he caught the answer on the tip of his tongue like a snowflake, Keith began to question _why_ Shiro had wanted him to live through a Charles Dickens novel.

“Hey, Keith!”

The snowflake melted, and Keith turned around to find Lance and Pidge each carrying an armful of rolled-up fabric.

“Are you ready to go?” asked Lance.

Keith took one more look at Matt, smiled, and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Any time you are.”

The four of them walked back to their respective vehicles to exchange their last hugs and goodbyes.

From the comfort of their warming car, Keith and Lance watched the Holts’ maroon van pull away.

And Keith, content, rested his head on Lance’s shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very, very anxious today. ;w; This was nearly another short chapter, but then I added everything after the line.


	15. Ahava

Keith walked along their living room wall, taking in the trinkets he and Lance had collected in this new life, the pictures they'd framed on the walls. Some they'd just pinned up with tacks along the edges of movies Keith had never seen but most likely would.

Pictures of Lance with what seemed to be his family. A family he must have gotten back on good terms with, which Keith was happy to see.

In some of those pictures, he even saw himself, two small children with ears like Lance's fighting for territory on his lap, or side-by-side with a woman Keith guessed was Lance's mother—perhaps an aunt—helping her chop tomatoes.

He also saw himself in printed-out selfies with Lance, however. Some where he didn't seem to want his picture taken, some where he seemed perfectly content, and some where his eyes were locked onto the man he was squished against. Keith couldn't help wondering how many of those were taken before they got together.

The adoration in his eyes was almost embarrassing to look at. He'd never seen anyone look so... _hopeless._ And knowing that was him, his own future, made it all the more embarrassing.

Lance must have really swept him off his feet.

He was...really in love, wasn't he?

God, no wonder Lance thought he was acting weird. All day, Keith had been acting like someone with only the faintest sparks of a crush because, well, that's what he was, so far.

But looking at their life together, at pictures of himself with Lance and Pidge and Matt and Hunk and a whole family of people he had yet to meet...it was clear just how much more those faint butterflies in his stomach could become.

Keith wondered, if they had this many photos on the walls, how many were in Keith's pocket, hidden away in a phone he didn't have the password to? How many were in _Lance's_ phone?

"Whatcha doin'?"

Lance appeared in the doorway next to the bookshelf Keith was inspecting, the one that led to the kitchen, where he'd been baking a lasagna the two of them had apparently made the day before.

Keith tried his best not to act like a kid who got his hand caught in a cookie jar.

"Oh, um..." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Just thinking."

"Just thinking," repeated Lance, following the line of Keith's sight to the photos he'd been looking at. "I see. You're being a huge sap and looking at our life together."

"Says the person who _took_ all these pictures," retorted Keith.

"Hey, I didn't take _all_ of them!" Lance sidled up against Keith's side and pointed at a photo on the third shelf. " _You_ took this one of me with my sisters."

"One," said Keith. "Out of..." He took a step back and appraised the entire west-facing wall.

"So I like remembering all the reasons I have for staying alive," said Lance. "Bite me."

A quiet laugh ghosted over Keith's lips. He could tell that was probably some kind of inside joke about how they met, but how they met was still too fresh in his mind to joke about. The laughter rang hollow.

Lance looked over his shoulder at Keith.

That concern from before returned to his eyes. Keith had no idea what it meant.

"Come on." Lance took Keith by the wrist and led him to the kitchen.

Keith followed like a fawn led by a leash.

There was an old boombox in the corner of the counter, tucked into the shadows of the cabinets above it.

Lance hit the round "Play" button on the front, and the scratchy whirring of a spinning CD filled the kitchen.

Lance's hand slid from Keith's wrist to his palm, and Keith realized what was happening with a jolt to his heart.

"I, uh..." Keith trailed off. He was about to tell Lance that he couldn't dance, but—

"It's not about being good, Keith." Lance squeezed his hand, and with a gentle tug, pulled him closer. "It's about having fun."

He laced his fingers with Keith's, set a hand on his waist, and led him to the space between the stove and the table, in the only part of the room where they were given enough room to dance.

The music was slow and light and old, with an orchestra and a choir and a crooner. Keith didn't expect Lance to listen to music like that. He seemed like more of a pop and hip-hop person. But then, he still had a lot left to learn about Lance.

The hand in Keith's own slipped out and traveled up his arm, to the back of his neck. Lance leaned into Keith, pressing his face into Keith's shoulder, and Keith was given little choice for where to put his hands but on the small of Lance's back.

What they were doing could barely be called dancing. It was more like...an excuse to be as close as possible. But Keith didn't mind. His future self would probably have found it normal.

At least, that's what Keith thought, until Lance sighed. And it wasn't a content sigh, either. It was a sad one. And the sound _terrified_ Keith.

"What is it?" Keith turned his head, trying to get a look at the face pressed into his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Lance held Keith tighter, arms locked behind his neck. "Guess you’re not the only one who’s a little anxious today. But I'm fine."

Keith doubted it. He wished he didn't, but he doubted it. And he didn't know what he did wrong. It must have been something, something subtle he never would have done in the future, something Lance figured out because he knew Keith too well.

But before Keith could think of a way to ask that didn't give away the game, the stove beeped, and Lance lifted his head with another sigh.

"Lasagna's done. Better go get it before it burns again."

He pressed his forehead to Keith's, eyes closed. He took a deep breath through his nose that said so much without words, and he pressed his lips to Keith's.

The constant was instantaneous, fleeting, quick as a flash and gone in a second.

But that didn't stop Keith's brain from frying like old wiring in a dilapidated house. He surged, shorted out, and shut down.

Kisses weren't supposed to feel like that, were they? Like some kind of key fell out of orbit and landed perfectly in the only lock in the universe it was meant for? Like the interlocking of puzzle pieces, or a hook in an eye, or a button in a buttonhole? Like it just _fit,_ and it made everything else work exactly the way it was supposed to as a result?

Keith ran his fingers over his lips. They tingled, felt almost swollen despite Lance's kiss being far from rough. There was an ache in his chest. Not where his heart was, but beneath his ribcage, right under where his sternum ended. It sent pulses of... _something_ into every inch of his body. It didn't feel like adrenaline. Not exactly. More like...sugar. Yeah, like he was five years old again and ate too many cookies and he wanted to run in circles around the house to burn off the rush.

His legs felt weak, and Keith must have had the thought to sit down, because now that he thought about it, he _was,_ though he didn't remember grabbing the chair. All he could think about was Lance's lips on his, the way it felt, the softness, the sweetness, and those sugary pulses from his chest to his fingertips and his weak knees and the toes that threatened to curl in his socks, and _Lance..._

"...or soda? I mean, you could have water, too, I guess, but... Keith?"

At the sound of Keith's name, he lifted his head and saw Lance standing over the lasagna he pulled out of the oven, pot holders half-folded in his hands.

"Uh..." Keith took his hand down from his lips, perhaps too quickly. "Y-Yeah? Sorry, I didn't hear—"

"Are you...?" Lance narrowed his eyes. "Oh, my god. You're, like, _swooning._ "

"Uh—"

"I haven't seen you like this since before we moved in together. Is this—?" Lance's jaw dropped. His eyes widened. "Is this just because I _kissed_ you?"

" _Uh—_ "

Lance laughed. "It _is,_ isn't it? Holy— Holy _shit,_ Keith!" He laughed harder, doubling over, clutching the edge of the counter.

Tears rolled down his cheeks, and his hand on the counter wasn't enough anymore. He hit the floor, and his potholders landed on the rug in front of the stove, and he hid his face in his hands, and his shoulders shook.

And Keith realized he wasn't laughing anymore.

He jumped to his feet and knelt Lance's side as quickly as he could reach it, unsure of what to say or what to do, only sure that Lance was crying and he wanted to stop it however he could.

"Lance?" Keith reached for the hands that covered the face of the incredible person in front of him, and he pulled them down.

Lance hit the cabinets behind him with a thump that rattled the doors and he took a deep, sniffling breath. The sobbing slowed to a stop, and he looked at Keith with a wet, teary, red-eyed smile.

"I thought you didn't love me anymore."

Keith's heart slammed guiltily against the walls of his chest, and a rush of clammy cold spread all across his body, replacing the sugar rush. "What?"

"I thought you didn't love me," repeated Lance. "You've just been acting so _weird_ all day. You looked at me weird when we woke up, and then there was the thing you were doing in the living room when you were looking at all our pictures like... I don't know, like you were trying to figure out what changed or like you were gauging how much our life really meant to you..."

Keith winced. That...wasn't _not_ what he was doing, but— "Lance—"

"And then there was the way you froze when you looked at Pidge and Matt," said Lance. "And I was like, 'What if he just realized that breaking up with me means things are going to get weird with Matt again because I've been friends with Pidge since, like, forever,' but then I was like, 'No, that's a _huge_ conclusion to jump to,' but you didn't even want to have _sex_ and when I told you I loved you this morning, you didn't say it back, and you _always_ say it back, so—" Lance laughed again, fresh tears jumping to his eyes. "But if you're still swooning over a _peck_ on the _lips—_ God, I feel _stupid_ now."

Keith yanked Lance close. It was awkward and sideways with Lance half-curled into a ball and Keith sitting perpendicular to the way Lance was sitting, but it was close, and it was tight, and it was enough.

"You're not stupid," said Keith. "I _swear_ you're not stupid. I've been weird today. It's not just you."

Lance sniffed and turned his face in, toward Keith's collar bone. "Yeah, I... Yeah. I just— I don't want to lose you."

"You won't lose me," assured Keith.

Lance took a deep, shaking breath, and grabbed the collar of Keith's shirt, like he was falling and grasping at whatever footing he could find. "I love you."

Keith ran his fingers through Lance's hair. He didn't want to lie. He was sure Lance would see right through him if he did. But he couldn't stay silent, either. Not after what Lance just said.

So, instead, Keith held Lance tight, and he whispered, "I'll love you."

The words ran together. It sounded like a statement, a confirmation, rather than what it truly was.

A promise. One Keith couldn't imagine breaking.

He'd love Lance. One day, he'd love Lance with all his heart. There was no way he couldn't.

And the man in his arms closed his eyes, made content by Keith's words.

"Let's eat in bed," offered Keith. "We can watch a movie, and...and cuddle, and—"

"The last time we did that, we spilled spaghetti all over our sheets," muttered Lance.

"That doesn't mean the same thing's going to happen this time." Keith repositioned himself into a pose that wouldn't fall over with the addition of a couple hundred more pounds of weight and he reached under Lance's legs to lift him off the floor.

"Come on."

Lance held on tight. "...Okay."

* * *

"I hate getting old."

Keith carded his fingers through Lance's hair, fingernails scratching the back of his head, and he pressed his forehead to Lance's hairline. "You aren't old."

"Yeah, I am," murmured Lance, wiggling closer under the blankets, moonlight from the window lying across his eyelids. "I was gonna pound your ass into next week after dinner, but now I'm too tired."

"I—" Keith's voice cracked, and he tried again. "I, uh, I-I don't think that's from being old."

"Still," grumbled Lance, voice thick with sleep. "Who the hell doesn't screw on their anniversary? Old people, that's who."

"Well... Uh... Time is a social construct, anyway," said Keith. "You... We can...spend all day tomorrow...doing whatever we want."

Lance smiled sleepily. If he noticed anything strange about Keith's bashfulness, he didn't say anything. "I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

"...I like _you_ a lot," said Keith, and that much he could say with complete honesty.

"Mm." Lance cuddled close until he could work his head under Keith's chin. "Sap."

Keith chuckled, scarcely more than a puff of air. "Yeah." He ran his hand down the back of Lance's head and held him with arms like a shield, like he could protect Lance from the whole world. "Guess I am. How'd you know?"

Lance's only answer was a slow, content breath.

"Lance?"

Nothing. Silence.

Keith smiled, and his own eyes slid closed.

"Good night," he whispered. "Merry Christmas."

From the doorway of their bedroom, the floorboards creaked, as if someone had stepped foot inside.

And, just like before, Keith didn't want to let go.

But he could. If he needed to, he could. If those tears from the kitchen were any indication, this Lance desperately needed his own Keith back.

"It's time, huh?" asked Keith of the darkness in his room.

"Okay. I'm ready."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow
> 
> Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
> 
> So have yourself a merry little Christmas now


	16. One Perfect Life

The hooded figure removed his black hood, revealing a kind smile Keith was unsurprised to find he recognized.

"Hello again," said the silver-haired man, the first of the ghosts Keith met at the supermarket.

"Hi," said Keith. "I was starting to wonder if you'd ever talk to me."

"Sorry about that," said the spirit. "I didn't want to risk affecting your interpretation of the events you experienced. My name is Alfor, and as you already know, I am the Ghost of Christmas Future."

"Yeah," said Keith. "Nice to meet you."

He turned away from Alfor to look at himself in the bed he stared with Lance, the both of them fast asleep.

"What _is_ your interpretation of these events?" asked Alfor. "How did you feel today, experiencing this life with Matthew, his sibling, and the young man from the bridge? Were you happy?"

Keith crossed his arms. "...Do you dream?" he asked. "Have you ever had one of those dreams where you have the perfect life, or you've got someone you love like an uncle or a friend or a boyfriend you never actually had...and then you wake up, and you realize they're not real, and it feels like you lost something that was _supposed_ to be in your life?"

"Is that how it felt?" asked Alfor.

Keith stared at Lance, trying to memorize the way he looked when he slept.

"...It's more like that's how I _thought_ I'd feel," said Keith. "What I'm feeling, what I'm _really_ feeling...it's harder to explain."

"You have all the time in the world to figure out how you're feeling now, in the in-between," said Alfor. "How did you feel _then?_ With Lance?"

Keith closed his eyes. "...I kept waiting for something to go wrong. For something to...to _slip,_ for some keystone to break and the whole thing to come crashing down. Like it wasn't really that happy, just...building up to whatever pain I couldn't escape from."

"Because you know how _A Christmas Carol_ goes?" asked Alfor.

"No," said Keith. "Because I know how my life goes. Everything I've ever loved, I've lost. My parents, Shiro..."

"Losing is a part of having," said Alfor. "Nothing lasts forever. Even if you walk alongside someone from the day you meet until the day you die, they will feel your share of the pain when your life at last leaves you."

"Losing Shiro was enough." Keith turned his back on Lance. "I never wanted to feel that way again."

"And yet..." Alfor took Keith by the shoulders and gently turned him back around. "This future could not be without your choices to make it so."

Keith looked at the floor.

"You chose to save this young man's life," said Alfor. "Most would be satisfied with that. But you, Keith... You escorted him to a place where he would receive the love and assurance he so desperately sought. You stayed awake until nearly dawn just to ensure he had one more person by his side. You welcomed him into your own life by inviting him into a world occupied by so many of your most bittersweet memories. And not only him, but his friend as well. What was different?"

"No consequences," muttered Keith.

"No..." Alfor squeezed Keith's shoulders. "You know how untrue those words are. You admitted the truth to Lance himself. You _wanted_ days like the one you shared in the park. You desire friendship. As much as Lance did, you seek love and assurance. And for once, someone else saw that. Even when Lance was on the verge of discarding his own life, he saw the tears in your eyes. He saw your pain. You were not a life preserver cast into his ocean, Keith. You were a counterweight to keep his boat from capsizing. And to be that counterweight, you pulled yourself out of the water and climbed aboard. And it must have felt so wonderful, for once, to be dry and warm in his arms rather than to rise and fall all alone in the waves, hoping to grow gills."

Keith closed his eyes.

Wonderful...was the perfect word. He was in wonder that something like that could happen, even for only two days.

"Tell me something," said Keith. "Actually _tell me._ Don't leave me with some vague half-answer like Coran did. Just tell me if any of this was real."

"That depends on your definition of real," said Alfor.

Keith clenched his teeth. "Don't. Don't give me that."

"You wanted the straightforward truth, and that is the most truthful answer I can provide." Alfor took a step forward, filling the space at Keith's left side, his right arm lying across his back from where his hand still squeezed Keith's shoulder. "This is but one potential future. It will take work to reach this outcome in your life from where you stand in the present, but it is possible."

"So what happens if I don't do everything perfectly, at the right time, in the right order, and my future's nowhere near this?" asked Keith. "Why show me this? Why not just show me some bullshit, empty future instead? What's the point?"

"'Bullshit, empty future,'" echoed Alfor, Keith's words lying odd in his strong, regal tones. "Keith, you already have a bullshit, empty present. The worst possible future for you is simply a continuation of the life you already know. You would learn nothing from more of the same. You've lost sight of the hope that there could be more. You needed to be shown that stability and contentment and love were all possible. That you could lose it all and it would still be worth the loss for all those years you spent in bliss. Or do you regret those years with Shiro leading up to his death?"

"No," growled Keith.

"Did you forget the promise you made to Lance on the kitchen floor?"

" _No,_ but..."

"But you're afraid," said Alfor. "Right now, right here, you're afraid, because you're thinking about the future, and the effort, and the loss, and everything that could go wrong. But when you were with Lance, were you afraid?"

"I already said I expected something to go wrong," said Keith.

"But were you _afraid?_ " asked Alfor. "When you lied together in bed, when he kissed you, when you sat at Shiro's grave with your friends, when Hunk held you together in his arms, were you afraid?"

On the tip of Keith's tongue lied the word "yes", an insistence that "that's what expecting the worst means", but...

The truth was, he wasn't scared. Not really. Not until he noticed Lance was upset. And even then, Keith wasn't scared for himself.

He was scared for _Lance._

"That's what stability is, Keith," said Alfor. "A sword to battle against fear. And each new person in your life is another blade to guard you. For years now, you've dwelled on Shiro's death, and yet the loss of your father and mother, though deeply painful, haven't scarred you in this way. The pain is incomparable to you. Why do you suppose that is, Keith? Why does Shiro's memory still haunt you to this day in ways that the memory of your own mother and father never could?"

Keith lifted his head to meet Alfor's eyes.

"You've fought this battle alone, Keith," said Alfor. "Shiro was your last sword. You have had no defense against the pain his loss brought you, and so your enemy still stands against you. This is why you have been chosen for this journey. Just as Jacob Marley sought to save Ebenezer Scrooge from the fate he himself suffered, Shiro seeks to save you from the agony his own loss brings you. He tried to prepare you in life, but you were too stubborn to listen then."

Alfor released Keith's arm, and from the arm of his cloak, he drew a familiar blade sheathed in a familiar scabbard.

He pulled the knife from Coran's sheath, and with it, he cut into the front of his cloak. From the strip he cut, he tore down the length of his coat from the collar to the foot until he had a long strip of cloth as black as night.

He sheathed Keith's knife again, tied that strip of cloth around the scabbard, and fastened it with a bow. Just as quickly as he tied the knot, he pulled on the cloth until it slid off the end. Where the knot should have collapsed into a wad of cut cloth, it held its form as it slid onto a candle that seemed to appear on the end of the scabbard just to hold the knot's shape.

"Cool magic trick," mumbled Keith.

"Thank you, Keith." Alfor handed him the candle, cloth still wrapped around it like a ribbon on a package. "You can consider this a gift from both Allura and myself. The light of the past, to remind you of what you've learned, and the darkness of the future, to remind you that you cannot know what has yet to be written, and to give in because you fear the worst is to live in ignorance of the best."

He held out Keith's knife as well, allowing him to take it in the hand that did not hold the candle.

"The blade, of course, is yours. Given to you after your bar mitzvah, if I recall correctly. A show of proof that your parents considered you enough of a man to use a knife responsibly. But the scabbard around your knife is a gift from Coran, to remind you that you have a choice with each battle, and that sometimes the best option is to lay your own weapon down and allow others to become your sword in its place."

Keith looked between the candle and the knife skeptically. "...I get to keep these? Like, they'll be here when this is over? I'm not just going to wake up like none of this ever happened?”

"You wanted to know whether any of this was real," said Alfor. "This is the proof we can offer you."

Keith turned the knife and the candle in his hands. "Okay. At least if I miss out on my best possible future, I'll be able to remember what it was supposed to be."

"Keith, you've not yet seen your best possible future."

Keith lifted his head. "What?"

Alfor smiled, and he covered the hand holding the candle with his own. "I said that this was one possible future. And it is a soft and welcoming one. But it is by no means the greatest possible future for you. There are greater worlds for you to discover and claim for your own, provided you find the paths to them."

Keith was speechless. How could there be _anything_ better than the life he'd just seen?

"Shloshim only lasts for thirty days, Keith. Yours has lasted over seven-hundred. It's time for you to celebrate life again."

"What does that even mean?" asked Keith.

The warmth of Alfor's hands vanished from his own.

"That depends, Keith."

The rest of Alfor followed.

"Do you want to wake up from this beautiful dream? Or would you rather make it your reality?"

The moonlight from the window shifted direction. The bodies beneath the blankets vanished. The bed changed shape. The walls changed color. Even Keith's clothes changed, returning him to his jacket and boots.

But the candle and the scabbard, as promised, stayed where Alfor left them.

Keith's pocket vibrated, his phone demanding his attention.

Frowning, Keith set his knife and candle down, and he reached into his pocket to take a look at the screen.

_LOW BATTERY_

Keith rolled his eyes and exited out of the alert. It seemed so mundane compared to what he'd just experienced.

In doing so, he got a good look at the day and time.

_11:58 PM, DECEMBER 24_

Keith narrowed his eyes.

He'd been left in... Well, time didn't seem to hold much meaning anymore. But it wasn't after his excursion with Coran, like he thought it would be. It was before he'd even met Allura.

Why?

Keith replayed Alfor’s last words in his head.

_Do you want to wake up from this beautiful dream? Or would you rather make it your reality?_

What did that mean? Was he being given a choice? A choice to do _what?_

Keith’s eyes widened. He reached for his phone and took another look at the time.

“Oh, _fuck._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm getting sick. But I really want to finish this before the end of the year. -laughs-
> 
> As this story begins to draw to a close, though, I have to admit, I think I needed this project. I've kind of gotten into a rut with writing, and doing something so different, so short, and working on it every day for a time... I think it's helping. <3 After I recover from whatever I'm coming down with, I think I'll be able to return to my other projects with new energy.


	17. The Handsomest, Most Charming Man on the Face of the Planet

Once upon a time, there was a boy. A beautiful boy. An absolutely gorgeous boy. The handsomest, most charming boy in the world. His name was Lance, and he was having a very, very bad day.

Week.

Year.

He pulled his blanket, one of the few things he had left, tighter around himself and shivered into the reclined passenger seat he'd been sleeping in since the end of the semester.

He had few comforts left. Money. He had that. It was supposed to go to another semester, but, well, _that_ wasn't happening anymore. He had the blankets he dragged out of the dorm he'd been kicked from. He had the supermarket he'd parked his car at, which he could pretend was a sort of really big refrigerator.

And he had free time. A lot of it. Too much.

He spent a lot of that time thinking about things. Dark things. Things that seemed so true to him at the time. But that didn't make them easier to think about.

To keep the tears from freezing on his already cold face, he listened to music.

Sometimes, though, the music wasn't loud enough.

Sometimes, the thoughts were louder.

Like when they were thinking the words " _fucking idiot_ " over and over again.

Fucking idiot.

_Fucking idiot._

**_Fucking idiot._ **

Lance yanked his headphones out of his ears and shoved his phone in his pocket.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid—!"

He kicked his glove box, and it fell open.

He wanted to pretend he was talking about the boy who bumped into him at the supermarket, but he knew where those words were really directed.

Someone had to be pretty stupid to fail all their classes, right?

Angry, angry at _himself,_ Lance opened his car door and let the winter wind claw at his face. He didn't care how cold it was. He needed to go for a walk.

Lance wasn't sure how far he walked or for how long. All he knew was that he found himself on a bridge, by himself, and the wind was cold, and he hadn't left his whirling, tormenting thoughts in his car.

If anything, they'd gotten louder.

It was Christmas, and the best gift he could give his family was his own absence.

Lance pressed his forehead into one of the steel beams that held the bridge firmly over the water and kicked its base again and again and again and again, sobbing with every frustrated kick.

_Fucking idiot..._

Lance pulled his hair and screamed through his clenched teeth.

He hated himself. The body he was in, the person he was, it felt like a prison. There was a pressure under his skin, pushing at his arms and legs from within, as if his soul was desperate to tear itself from the walls it was trapped in.

The past was a mistake, the present was torture, and the future was a long, black, endless river he'd sink deep into the moment a single foot crossed the very edge, _so why not just rip the bandage off and sink?_

Lance froze. The tears stopped at once, and a cold, eerie calm wrapped around his chest like the coiling body of a snake.

He turned his eyes, and his gaze shot to the long, black, endless river over the edge of the bridge.

_Why not just sink?_

Lance's hands shook for reasons that reached far beyond the cold.

How many times had he heard the phrase "permanent solution to a temporary problem"?

His problems didn't seem temporary. His problems seemed like living out of his car for the rest of his life, never seeing his family again, being alone and worthless for however long it took to reach the end naturally.

How many times had he been told that it wasn't the answer?

There was no answer. Just an unclimbable fence with nothing on the other side.

It wasn't even a different ending for him. Not really. It was just...hitting fast-forward.

_Why not just SINK_

Lance took a step toward the edge.

But he stopped.

He shook his head, shuddered, and pushed past the beam he'd kicked.

Not yet.

Not yet.

_But when?_

Lance clapped a hand over his mouth, but he walked on. He ignored the water. He looked anywhere but the river.

The calm was gone.

Lance's chest seized with gasping sobs.

The future was back. That long, endless, black river in his path was back, and he looked into the bottom, and he saw himself living in his car for the rest of his life, until he froze to death on some cold night, until he ran out of money and starved, until he got arrested for being unable to pay loitering tickets, until his car got towed, and he just...

He just wanted that calm back.

That calm of finally, for once, having some answer, some direction. Even if it was a direction that led him off the edge of a bridge and into the cold water of the freezing river below.

Lance stopped walking, and that cold calm came back. That numb acceptance. That glorious siren's song.

The solution fucking idiots reach.

Lance took a deep, unsteady breath.

"Okay..."

And he rounded the corner of a tall concrete pillar, ready to jump, ready to fall, ready to just _sink._

And between himself and the edge of the bridge, he found a different sort of barrier from the one he was expecting.

He found a boy.

And not just any boy.

A boy with long, black hair, and a red jacket, and piercing eyes.

The boy he used to see every so often at the mall.

The one he always wanted to talk to but never had the guts.

The one who spilled smoothie on his jacket and called him a fucking idiot not eighteen hours prior.

Beside him sat a backpack and a thermos, and on his lap, he held a folded blanket.

His eyes met Lance's, and he leaned back against the barrier behind him, a shuddering breath fanning out across his lips.

" _There_ you are..." He laughed faintly, anxiously. "God... For a minute, I... I thought I was..." He ran a hand down his face. "...Never mind. You're okay."

He lifted his backpack and moved it to the other side of his legs, patting the spot he left open. Rather than looking up to meet Lance's eyes again, he unzipped his backpack and began to dig through it.

Lance looked at the spot he patted, then looked at the barrier behind it.

For a fleeting, hysterical moment, Lance considered saying something along the lines of, "Hey, uh, sorry, but I was actually about to kill myself and it's really awkward to do that with you sitting there, so, like...do you mind?"

But even through the numb haze of his mind that made it impossible to make sense of what he was looking at, Lance knew that sounded insane.

He watched the boy on the sidewalk draw two coffee mugs from inside his backpack, as well as a carton of creamer and a plastic sandwich bag of what Lance presumed was sugar.

He watched the boy pour an amount of creamer into one of the mugs, look inside, frown, and add more. Then he uncapped the thermos, and the smell of coffee wafted up from within.

If Lance had had more energy, he might have asked what the hell was going on, but he just...didn't, so he let it happen.

The boy filled the mug with coffee, reached back into his bag for another sandwich bag that held _spoons,_ for some reason, and Lance watched him add three spoonfuls of sugar to the coffee and stir until the sugar dissolved.

And just as Lance let himself think, _Funny. That's how_ I _drink coffee,_ the boy held out the cup for Lance to take.

"I think I got it right," said the boy. "Careful, though. It's hot. Or... I guess it would have been hotter, but I was kind of in a hurry to get here, so it's not as hot as it could be. Sorry."

Lance looked from the boy to the cup and back again, trying to find the answers to questions he couldn't even put words to, but, without protest, he took the cup, and he finally sat down.

The minute he did, the boy picked up the blanket he'd had folded on his lap and wrapped it around Lance's shoulders.

"You don't want..." Lance took a deep breath and started to slide the blanket off. "I haven't showered in a week, dude."

The boy rolled his eyes and pulled the blanket back up. "Don't worry about that. I can wash the blanket later. You matter more than it does, anyway."

Lance's mind tried as hard as it could to latch onto those words, to try to find some kind of answer or explanation in that, only to realize it couldn't and quickly give up.

Lance watched the boy as he poured himself his own cup of coffee—barely any cream, no sugar—and took a drink.

Lance drank from his own cup.

It was good. Not as warm as he might have wanted it, but good.

Exactly how he liked it.

Lance lowered the cup from his lips and appraised the boy beside him who was acting as if everything he did was completely normal and warranted no explanation.

And it was goddamn _frustrating._

"All right," sighed Lance. "Who are you?"

"Keith," said the boy.

"That's not—" Lance huffed, irritated. "Are you, like, my fairy godmother? Or some angel who decided to take the form of my middle school crush so I'd trust you or something?"

"No," said Keith. "I'm just your middle school crush."

Lance stared. Just stared. If he'd had it in himself to be embarrassed, he would have been, but he didn't.

"So why are you here?" asked Lance.

"To stop you from jumping off the bridge," said Keith.

"How did you know I was—?" Lance shook his head frantically, trying to talk louder than the confusion ringing in his head. " _I_ didn't know I was going to jump until five minutes ago! I mean, I’ve been thinking about it, but this was the only time I— And you had enough time to get a blanket and coffee and— And you know _how_ I like my coffee, and— What the _fuck?!_ "

"It's a long story," said Keith. "And it's complicated. And I'll tell you everything someday. But right now, I just want you to be okay."

He looked at Lance, directly at him, like he knew everything about him, like he could read his soul.

"Coffee and a blanket won't make you okay, and I know that. I also know that I'm part of the reason you're not okay, and I'm sorry. You have no idea how much I regret what I said this morning. But I also know that I want to be in your life, and I want you to be part of mine, and I _can't do that_ if you _die._ So you have a choice. Either I'm taking you to a hospital, or we can call Hunk and tell him what's going on with you, or you stay with me tonight and we call Hunk _tomorrow_ because he deserves to know and _you_ deserve to know that he _loves_ you."

Lance shook his head. "I-I don't want to bug Hunk with this."

"Too bad," said Keith. "Because I'm telling him no matter what. Even if you pick the first option, I know how to get in touch with Pidge's brother, and I can get Hunk's number through them." Keith's eyes narrowed. "I'm telling him. You only get to choose _when_ and _how._ "

"What if I don't _want_ to pick one of your three stupid options?" snapped Lance. "What if I just _turn around_ and jump _right now?_ Do you really think you can stop me?"

"Yes."

Lance blinked.

Keith glared at him so intensely, so firmly, that it was as if he'd stopped Lance before somehow. Like there was no doubt in his mind at all. It was _jarring._

"Yes, Lance, I _can_ stop you. And I will. Because I'm not letting you die. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not for a _really_ long time. If you jump, I'll catch you. Even if it means I might fall in with you. Because you're worth falling for."

Keith held Lance's gaze.

Lance's palms gathered sweat around the warm cup in his hands.

And he sighed, because that was all he could do.

"Guess I'm staying at a stranger's house tonight." He swirled his coffee in his hands. "I mean, what's the worst that could happen? You turn out to be an axe murderer? Cool. 'Swhat I wanted anyways."

And as Lance would soon learn, Keith wasn't an axe murderer. He was dangerous in other ways, of course. Dangerous for Lance's heart, for the curtains he tore down moving his couch into the house he'd move into with Lance three years later, for the white sheets that got spaghetti sauce stains because Keith started kissing Lance in the middle of dinner and they both forgot the plate was there...but he was never dangerous to Lance.

He was supportive, and kind, and strong enough for Lance when he felt weak. And he was honest, and open, and trusting.

Just like he promised, he told Lance all about the adventure he had that December when they met. All about Allura and Coran and Alfor, and the future he saw where they could be together.

And some things were different. Keith was honest about that, too. Keith made sure that Lance knew, even if he was acting strangely for a day, that it wasn't because he was falling out of love. He took more pictures and changed the layout on the wall from what he remembered to a display that showed more of Lance with his family and all their friends to remind him how loved he was. He made chocolate and raspberry pancakes long before Hunk had time to introduce them to the recipe.

And he gave Lance some ideas on things _he_ could change, too.

Like writing Keith's entire adventure down on paper, even if that meant he had to make a few guesses about some things, like what Keith was thinking sometimes when he couldn't even put his thoughts into words, or why Keith went all red and clearly _skipped_ what future-Lance said to him while they were cuddling in bed.

Because sometimes, waiting for your boyfriend to hide an engagement ring in his underwear drawer just takes too long.

Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands.

And sometimes that means using up all the ink in the printer to print out a romantic as _fuck_ proposal in the form of retelling the story of how you met.

So listen, I'm probably freezing my balls off in the garage right about now, waiting for you to finish reading and come outside so I can do this thing properly.

So if you read this far—and you better have, because that's what the sticky note _told you_ to do—then hurry up and save me from the cold already.

Just like you've always done.

Just like I'm always going to do for you, every day, for the rest of our lives. Even if you say no. Which, y'know, considering this was about the time _you_ were gonna propose to _me_ in the other timeline or whatever, I think my odds are pretty good that you won't.

I'll take those odds.

Just don't keep me waiting. Seriously, it's, probably, like, twenty degrees or something.

—The Handsomest, Most Charming, Most _Loved_ Boy in the World,

_Lance McClain_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone enjoyed this short fic! I am...tired. I'm tired. -laughs- I'm probably gonna rest for two days (the only thing I celebrate voluntarily in December is the new year anyway, so this lined up perfectly) and then I'm going to get back to work on the rest of my projects. This has been a fun two weeks!
> 
> Congratulations on making it through 2020. Maybe it's the worst year of your life. Maybe it wasn't even close. But it was still a bad year, and you survived.
> 
> And sure, 2021 isn't going to start off great or anything. We still have a plague to survive. But at least we can chop 2020 off and let it exist in its own space.
> 
> Let the past be past, enjoy what you can in the present, and keep hope alive for the future.
> 
> Congratulations on making it through this year, and may your next be a little bit brighter.


End file.
